ESIEGED 


E.  OUVER  ASHE,  M=D 


mmm 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


h^ 


/9c^ 


BESIEGED    BY    THE    BOERS 


[Page  184. 


BESIEGED  BY 
THE    BOERS 

^  BIART  OF  LIFE  AND 
EVENTS  IN  KIMBERLET 
DURING  THE  SIEGE  .  . 
By  E.  OLIVER  ASHE 
M.D.  Lond.,  F.R.C.S.  Eng.,  Sur- 
geon   to    the    Kimberley    Hospital 


WITH 

TWENTY-FOUR     ILLUSTRATIONS 


^ 


London 
HUTCHINSON  &  CO. 
Paternoster  Row    .     1900 


PRINTED  BY 

HAZELL,   WATSON,    AND   VINEY,    LD. 

LONDON   AND  AYLESBURY. 


TO    MT    MOTHER 

AT    HOME    IN    ENGLAND 

/  wrote  this  Diary,  day  by  day,  with  no 
idea  of  ever  publishing  it.  Now  that  I 
am  led  to  change  my  plan,  to  her 

5  Dedicate  tbis  %qQ)^ 

KiMBERLEY,  March  6ih,   1900. 


1 220095 


My  hearty  thanks  are  due  to  Mr.  Marcus 
Bennett,  Mr.  C.  Evans,  Mr.  F.  H.  Hancox, 
and  Dr.  Stoney,  for  the  beautiful  and  interest- 
ing photographs  with  which  they  have  kindly 
permitted  me  to  illustrate  this  Diary. 

E.  O.  A. 


INTRODUCTION 


KIMBERLEY  is  the  second  largest  town 
in  Cape  Colony,  and  is  the  largest 
diamond-mining  centre  in  the  world.  It  came 
into  existence  in  1870  with  the  discovery  of 
diamonds,  and,  including  its  suburbs  of  Kenil- 
worth,  Beaconsfield,  and  Wesselton,  has  now 
a  population  of  about  forty  thousand,  of  whom 
about  twenty-five  thousand  are  whites.  The 
three  principal  mines — Kimberley,  De  Beers, 
and  Wesselton — are  worked  by  the  De  Beers 
Consolidated  Mines,  Limited.  This  immense 
Company,  of  which  Mr.  Rhodes  is  the  chair- 
man, has  a  capital  of  nearly  four  millions, 
pays  well  over  a  million  a  year  in  wages,  and 
turns  out  ten  thousand  pounds'  worth  of  rough 
diamonds   every  working  day.     All   Kimberley 


X  3ntro^uction 

makes  its  living  directly  or  indirectly  from 
the  Company,  and  for  all  practical  purposes 
Kimbcrley  and  the  Company  are  one.  The 
town  is  six  hundred  and  forty-seven  miles  by 
rail  from  Cape  Town,  and  four  hundred  and 
eighty-five  from  Port  Elizabeth,  and  there  is 
no  English  town  nearer  than  the  last-named 
place.  The  Cape  Town  to  Bulawayo  line 
passes  through  the  town ;  but  from  the  Orange 
River  (seventy-seven  miles  south  of  Kimberley) 
it  runs  for  quite  four  hundred  miles  close  to 
the  Orange  Free  State  and  Transvaal  borders 
— never  more  than  ten  miles,  often  only  two 
or  three,  away  from  them.  Kimberley  itself 
is  about  four  miles  from  the  border.  From 
its  isolated  position  it  could,  therefore,  be  cut 
off  with  the  greatest  ease,  and  only  relieved 
with  the  greatest  difficulty,  whilst  the  chance 
of  looting  its  good  shops  and  well-furnished 
private  houses  must  have  had  an  irresistible 
attraction  for  the  pious  Boer  and  his  still  more 
pious  vrouw. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER    I 

PAGE 

THE    BOERS   STRIKE   FIRST      ....  I 


CHAPTER    II 
FIGHTING   AND   RAIDING  .  .  .  .         l8 

CHAPTER    in 
THE   BOMBARDMENT   BEGINS  •  •  •         35 

CHAPTER    IV 
"WITH    C.   J.    RHODES'S   COMPLIMENTS"  .         56 

CHAPTER    V 
MILITARY    ECCENTRICITIES    .  .  .  .        71 

CHAPTER    VI 
THE    FOOD    PROBLEM 92 


xii  Contents 

PAGE 

CHAPTER    VII 
HORSE   FOR    DINNER IIO 

CHAPTER    VIII 

OUR     BIG    GUN,    AND     THE     BOERS'    BIGGER 

ONE 135 

CHAPTER    IX 
THE   RUSH    FOR   SHELTER       .  .  .  -153 

CHAPTER    X 
A   NEW   USE   FOR   DIAMOND-MINES  .  -179 

CHAPTER    XI 
RELIEF   AT   LAST 2O3 


BESIEGED  BY  THE  BOERS 


CHAPTER    I 

THE    BOERS    STRIKE    FIRST 

KiMBERLEY,  Novetnber  19,  1899. 

GOODNESS  only  knows  when  this  will 
get  posted,  for  it  is  five  weeks  to- 
day since  we  were  cut  off  from  the  outside 
world,  and  though  all  along  we  have  been 
hearing  of  troops  on  the  way  to  relieve  us,  they 
are  just  as  far  off  as  ever,  for  all  we  know. 
I  think,  therefore,  that  as  there  will  be  such 
heaps  to  write  about  when  we  are  relieved, 
I  had  better  be  getting  some  of  it  jotted 
down. 

My  last  letter  was  written  on  October  8th, 
the  day  after  we  had  had  the  parade  of  all 
our  defence  forces.     Things  went  along  quietly 

1 


2  1Bc5icQC^  b^  tbe  Boers 

the  first  part  of  the  next  week,  though  we 
kept  hearing  plenty  of  rumours  as  to  the  Boer 
movements;  but  on  Thursday,  October  12th, 
the  war  really  began,  near  Mafeking.  Colonel 
Baden-Powell,  who  commanded  there,  seeing 
that  war  was  inevitable,  practically  ordered 
all  the  women  and  children  to  leave,  as  he 
foresaw  that  Mafeking  would  have  a  very 
warm  time  of  it. 

They  left  in  a  special  train,  and  an  armour- 
plated  train  escorted  it  as  far  as  Vryburg, 
and  then  started  on  the  return  journey.  All 
went  well  till  they  got  to  Kraaipan,  about 
twenty  miles  this  side  of  Mafeking,  and  there 
the  Boers  had  torn  up  the  rails,  so  that  the 
train  ran  off  the  road  and  came  to  a  stand- 
still. Then  they  pounded  away  at  her  with 
a  small  field-gun  and  rifles,  until  all  resist- 
ance ceased,  after  which  they  took  prisoners 
any  men  left  alive  and  carried  them  off. 

The  first  report  we  got  was  that  the  Boers 
had  put  a  big  gun  slap  in  front  of  the  re- 
turning train  and  blown  the  whole  thing  to 
bits,  killing  every  soul  in  it  ;  but  this  turned 
out  not  to  be  true,  as  the  engine-driver  man- 
aged to  elude  the  Boers,  and  got  away  down  to 


XLbc  Boers  Stride  jfirst  3 

Vryburg  and  gave  the  correct  version.  Lieu- 
tenant Nesbit,  who  was  in  charge  of  the  train, 
had  been  warned  that  the  Boers  held  the  line 
and  that  it  was  unsafe  for  him  to  return,  but 
I  suppose  he  thought  there  was  just  a  chance 
of  getting  through,  and  so  he  risked  it.  He 
was  reported  to  be  badly  wounded,  but  we 
have  no  further  news  of  him  so  far. 

This  business  considerably  astonished  us  here 
in  Kimberley,  for  though  the  people  farther 
up  country  all  said  that  war  was  certain  to 
come,  we  did  not  at  all  believe  it.  The  result, 
of  course,  was  to  increase  the  activity  of  the 
military,  police,  and  Town  Guard,  and  every- 
thing was  done  to  hurry  on  our  defences 
as  quickly  as  possible.  The  13th  and  14th 
passed  quietly  without  any  alarm,  but  late  on 
the  night  of  the  14th  (Saturday),  a  well-known 
man  fetched  me  out  to  see  his  child,  and  told 
me  news  had  just  come  in  that  the  railway 
had  been  torn  up  at  Spytfontein,  about  eight 
miles  south  of  Kimberley.  Next  morning  about 
6.30  a.m.,  Stoney  came  in  to  tell  me  that  the 
railway  had  also  been  cut  at  Riverton  Road, 
ten  miles  north  of  Kimberley,  and  that  the 
waterworks    at    Kivcrton     had    been    taken    by 


4  'BcBicQc^  bv  tbe  Boers 

the  Boers  and  our  water  supply  cut  off,  so 
we  were  practically  in  a  state  of  siege.  The 
alarm  was  to  sound  at  about  9  a.m.,  and 
every  one  would  have  to  go  to  his  post.  This 
was  nice  news,  but  all  we  could  do  was  to 
make  the  best  of  it. 

My  first  move  was  to  fill  up  my  big  rain- 
water tank,  the  big  bath,  and  every  available 
receptacle,  so  that  we  should  have  a  reserve 
to  fall  back  upon  in  case  of  need  ;  and  most 
of  the  people  did  the  same   thing. 

On  the  next  day  notice  was  given  that, 
in  order  to  economise  water  as  much  as  pos- 
sible (the  reservoir  in  the  town  only  holding 
enough  for  about  three  weeks),  the  supply 
would  only  be  turned  on  from  nine  to  eleven 
o'clock  each  morning,  and  that  any  one  found 
watering  a  garden  or  caught  using  water  for 
anything  except  purely  domestic  and  necessary 
purposes  would  have  his  supply  permanently 
cut  off,  without  respect  of  persons. 

Quite  early  in  the  morning  a  big  proclama- 
tion was  issued,  that  from  that  time  forward 
martial  law  was  in  force,  and  that  no  one 
would  be  allowed  out  of  his  house  between 
9   p.m.   and    6    a.m.   without  a  special  permit. 


Zbc  Boers  Stride  jfirst  s 

All  sorts  of  other  subjects  were  touched  upon 
in  the  proclamation,  but  that  was  the  most 
important.  I  went  round  doing  my  work  as 
usual,  but  at  about  1 1  a.m.  the  "  hooters  "  gave 
the  alarm,  and  every  one  hurried  off  to  his  post. 
Many  people  had  been  warned  and  expected  the 
alarm,  but  in  the  lower  quarters  of  the  town 
it  came  as  a  surprise,  and  there  was  quite  a 
panic  there.  In  some  of  the  better  streets, 
too,  where  a  few  excitable  women  lived  near 
each  other,  there  was  a  lively  state  of  things, 
for  they  ran  around  frightening  each  other 
with  yarns  as  to  the  number  of  Boers  that 
could  be  seen  advancing,  and  how  very  easily 
they  could  take  Kimberley,  and  all  the  rest 
of  it. 

For  some  time  before  this  the  military  people 
had  been  busy  putting  up  earthworks  and  loop- 
holed  forts  all  round  the  town — lots  of  them 
— in  the  most  salient  positions,  such  as  on  the 
tops  of  the  debris  heaps,  and  at  the  points 
which  commanded  the  roads,  etc.  They  had 
also  formed  a  Town  Guard — which  nearly  all 
the  able-bodied  men  joined — of  all  ranks,  and 
these  men  turned  out  to  man  the  forts.  We 
had  only  about  six  hundred  Regulars  here  and 


6  3Bcsieae&  b^  tbe  Boers 

about  the  same  number  of  Volunteers  and  Volun- 
teer Artillery,  These  had  all  been  in  camp 
for  some  days,  but  as  the  circle  enclosed  by  the 
forts  was  only  thirteen  miles  round,  they  could 
not  anything  like  man  the  forts,  so  the  idea 
was,  and  has  been  all  along,  that  the  Town 
Guard  should  man  the  forts  whilst  the  Regu- 
lars, Volunteers,  and  Artillery  were  camped  in 
a  central  position,  ready  to  turn  out  sharp  and 
proceed  to  any  quarter  upon  which  an  attack 
was  made. 

Rumours  kept  flying  around  all  the  morning, 
but  nothing  happened.  A  patrol  of  the  Mounted 
Police  went  out  towards  Riverton  and  was 
chased  by  a  superior  force  of  Dutch  and  had  to 
leave  behind  two  men  whose  horses  were  either 
shot  or  fell  with  them.  One  of  the  men  I 
knew  well,  as  he  was  the  man  from  whom  I 
always  bought  my  horses.  They  were  reported 
shot,  but  some  days  after  we  heard  that  they 
had  only  been  made  prisoners. 

The  armoured  train  went  out  both  sides 
of  Kimberley,  and  was  fired  on  and  had  to 
retreat.  And  so  it  wore  on  to  night,  nothing 
happening  but  heaps  of  rumours  and  a  good 
deal  of  scare  all  around. 


TLbc  Boers  Strifte  jfirst  7 

Just  before  the  outbreak  Dr.  Fuller  decided 
to  send  his  wife  and  family  away  to  Cape  Town, 
and  he  went  part  of  the  way  with  them.  He 
had  only  just  got  back  when  he  had  a  wire 
that  his  baby  had  been  killed  in  an  accident 
near  Beaufort  West,  so  off  he  went  on  Friday 
to  his  wife,  passing  Dr.  Watkins  on  the  way, 
the  latter  on  his  return  from  an  English 
holiday.  On  the  Saturday  the  railway  was 
cut,  and  so  Fuller  could  not  return,  but  had 
to  go  on  to  Cape  Town,  and  Watkins  took 
his  place  to  work  with  me  at  the  hospital. 

Rhodes  turned  up  here,  too,  the  last  day 
the  railway  was  open.  Many  people  were 
wild  with  him,  thinking  that  he  would  be  an 
additional  inducement  to  the  Boers  to  attack 
us;  but  I  think  it  was  very  plucky  of  him 
to  come  and  stand  by  the  town  which  made 
him,  and  with  which  he  is  so  intimately  con- 
nected. He  did  not  stay  idle  long,  but  began 
at  once  to  raise  a  regiment  of  his  own — the 
Kimberley  Light  Horse — paying  for  every- 
thing in  connection  with  them  out  of  his  own 
pocket. 

Next  day  (Monday,  October  i6th)  was 
much  quieter.     Nothing  had  been  seen  or  heard 


8  iKesiCGCb  bv?  tbc  Boers 

of  the  Dutch,  and  there  were  various  rumours 
that  relief  from  Orange  River  was  close  at 
hand,  which  quieted  the  people  down  a  good 
deal. 

The  17th  was  not  a  happy  day  for  us  alto- 
gether, though  we  heard  that  the  Boers  had 
been  beaten  back  from  Mafeking  and  lost  many 
men.  Nearer  home  we  heard  that  the  people 
at  Vryburg  and  Warrenton  were  either  too 
afraid  or  too  disloyal  to  help  the  Mounted 
Police  there,  and  as  the  latter  were  far  too  few 
to  defend  the  places  successfully  without  the 
townspeople's  aid,  they  retired  on  Kimberley, 
leaving  Vryburg  and  the  Fourteen  Streams 
bridge  at  Warrenton  over  the  Vaal  River  to 
the  Dutch.  The  captain  in  charge  of  the 
Vryburg  men  was  so  broken  down  at  having 
to  retreat  that  it  is  reported  he  blew  his 
brains  out  a  few  miles  from  Vryburg.  The 
men  at  Fourteen  Streams  left  their  tents 
with  lights  burning  in  them,  but  brought 
everything  else  off  safely.  When  morning 
came,  the  Dutch  fired  into  the  deserted  camp 
for  two  hours,  and  then  sent  a  Kaffir  to  see 
whether  any  one  was  left  alive  !  They  were 
surprised  to  find  every  one; had  gone. 


Zbc  Boers  Stride  jFttst  9 

The  two  lots  of  police  got  in  safely,  via 
Barkley,  on  that  day  (Wednesday,  October  1 8th). 
Nothing  happened  except  that  Agnes's  troubles 
began.  Heaps  of  people  had  rushed  into  town 
on  the  first  day  of  alarm,  and  had  no  occupation 
or  means  of  livelihood,  and  a  relief  committee 
was  formed  to  inquire  into  their  cases  and  help 
them  if  they  were  deserving.  Agnes,  always  a 
too  willing  horse  at  any  philanthropic  foolish- 
ness, commenced  to  work  six  hours  a  day  at 
this  game.  After  a  few  days  she  was  dead 
beat,  and  so  I  cut  the  work  down  to  three, 
and  even  that  knocked  her  over  after  a  couple 
of  weeks.  When  there  was  a  talk  of  relief,  as 
usual  lots  of  folks  declined  to  work,  but  tried 
their  best  to  get  food  for  nothing. 

One  day  over  one  hundred  and  sixty  natives 
were  told  that  if  they  wanted  help  they  must 
work  for  it,  and  stone-breaking  work  was 
offered  them.  Three  accepted  it,  and  that  was 
about  the  style  of  most  of  the  people  who 
applied  for  relief. 

On  Thursday,  October  1 9th,  there  were 
all  sorts  of  rumours  about  as  to  the  railway 
having  been  broken  all  the  way  down  to 
Hex     River     and     that     the     Colonial     Dutch 


lo  JSesieoeD  bx>  tbc  Boers 

had  risen  to  join  the  Transvaal.  This  made 
a  run  on  the  provision  stores,  as  if  it  were 
true,  it  meant  that  it  would  be  a  long  time 
before  we  could  get  new  supplies  of  food 
in.  At  least  some  people  thought  so,  for- 
getting that  most  of  our  supplies  come  vid 
Port  Elizabeth,  which  is  nearly  two  hundred 
miles  nearer.  Anyhow,  there  was  a  run  on 
provisions,  etc.,  and  the  storekeepers  naturally 
put  the  prices  up,  and  they  did  it  with  a 
vengeance.  Paraffin,  which  had  been  selling  at 
sixteen  shillings  and  sixpence,  went  up  to 
three  pounds  for  a  ten-gallon  case,  and  other 
things  in  proportion.  We  had  got  in  a  fair 
stock  of  stuff  previous  to  this,  but  I  bought 
two  sacks  of  flour  to  be  on  the  safe  side. 

This  tremendous  run  up  of  prices  made 
it  very  hard  on  the  poor,  and  so  the  military 
authorities  took  the  matter  in  hand,  and 
issued  a  proclamation  next  day  that  all  prices 
were  to  be  exactly  the  same  as  they  were 
before  the  siege  began.  This  was  a  very 
good  thing,  and  of  course  they  took  good 
care  to  see  that  it  was  carried  out  by 
providing  heavy  penalties  for  any  one  who 
did    overcharge. 


XTbe  Boers  Stride  jfirst  n 

We  have  had  plenty  of  military  proclama- 
tions, but  most  of  them  have  been  quite 
wise,  such  as  forbidding  the  sale  of  liquor 
to  natives  except  during  very  limited  hours, 
and  later  on  absolutely  prohibiting  the  sale 
of  liquor  to  them  at  all.  The  bar-keepers 
did  not  like  this  last  order,  but  after  one 
of  them  was  fined  thirty  pounds  and  got 
his  bar  completely  closed  till  the  end  of 
the  siege  came,  they  saw  that  they  had  to 
obey  it. 

At  about  this  time  my  new  single-horse 
trap  was  completed,  and  I  tried  two  ot  my 
horses  in  it  and  found  they  went  very  well. 
This  was  lucky,  for  horse-keep  looked  like 
getting  dear,  and  as  we  were  shut  in,  there  was 
not  so  much  work  in  the  outlying  places. 
I  therefore  thought  that  I  would  sell  out  all 
but  my  best  horses,  and  do  the  work  with 
three,  or  even  two,  if  keep  got  to  be  too 
dear.  I  did  the  good  citizen  by  lending 
one  horse  to  the  Volunteers,  on  condition  that 
I  was  to  have  him  back  when  things  came 
right,  but  if  he  died  or  got  shot,  that  was 
better  than  having  him  looted  by  some  thiev- 
ing  Boer.      I   sold   another    horse   to  the   Light 


J  2  :fiSe9ieae&  b\?  tbe  JBocrs 

Horse,  and  found  that  I  could  do  my  work 
with  the  three  remaining  ones  quite  well, 
running  a  single  horse  half  the  day  and  the 
old  cart  with  a  pair  the  other  half. 

About  the  first  day  I  had  the  new  cart  out 
I  had  an  amusing  experience.  After  the  first 
alarm  the  military  people  blocked  up  all  the 
small  streets  leading  into  the  town  with  barri- 
cades of  old  waggons,  carts,  water-tanks,  and 
other  heavy  lumber,  and  where  this  was  not 
available  they  put  up  strong,  high,  barbed- 
wire  fences,  eight  or  nine  strands.  This  was, 
of  course,  to  prevent  any  rushing  of  the  town 
by  the  Boers,  and  most  of  the  barricades  were 
artfully  arranged  so  that  if  a  rush  were  made 
the  Boers  would  be  blocked  just  under  the 
forts  or  redoubts,  from  which  our  men  could 
pot  them  with  great  comfort,  both  with  rifles 
and  Maxims,  of  which  we  had  a  good  supply. 
Not  that  previous  experience  led  us  to  believe 
that  the  Boers  would  be  Hkely  to  rush  us,  as 
they  prefer  to  be  behind  shelter  and  shoot  at 
long  range,  and  have  far  too  great  a  respect 
for  their  own  dirty  hides  to  venture  an  assault. 
Another  little  surprise  packet  that  was  care- 
fully arranged  for  them  was  to  bury  dynamite 


Zhc  Boers  Sttihe  jftrst  13 

in  the  places  that  seemed  likely  for  them  to 
use  as  attacking  points  (of  course  at  a  safe 
distance  from  the  forts),  and  arrange  for  the 
electrical  firing  of  them  when  required. 

This  little  dodge  was  diligently  talked  about 
and  very  soon  got  over  to  the  Boers,  but  as 
no  one  but  the  initiated  few  knew  just  where 
the  dynamite  was  buried,  it  left  the  Boers  with 
the  pleasant  feeling  that  wherever  they  chose 
to  attack  it  was  just  as  likely  as  not  that 
their  worthless  insides  would  be  blown  out 
by  dynamite,  which  I  have  no  doubt  did  not 
much  increase  their  ardour. 

The  main  streets  were  barricaded  in  just 
the  same  way  as  the  small  ones,  but  an 
opening  was  left  in  the  centre,  and  a  guard 
was  put  on  either  side  of  Volunteers  or  Town 
Guard  or  police  (all  fully  armed),  with  orders 
to  allow  no  one  to  pass  in  or  out  without 
a  properly  signed  permit,  and  even  then  to 
search  both  their  carts  and  pockets  if  they 
thought  fit.  The  first  day  these  orders  were 
in  force  I  wanted  to  see  a  patient  about  one 
hundred  yards  beyond  one  of  the  barriers.  I 
did  not  know  the  orders,  as  no  notice  of 
them    had    been    given,    and    when    I    got    near 


14  JBcsiCQC^  bv  tbc  Boers 

the  barrier  I  saw  carts  being  stopped,  so  I 
said  to  the  man  on  guard,  "  Are  you  going 
to  stop  me  too  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  he  said,  "  unless  you  have  a  permit." 

"  May  I  leave  my  cart  here  and  walk,  over 
there  to  see  the  patient  ?  " 

"  No  ;  if  you  have  no  permit,  neither  you 
nor  the  cart  can  pass." 

So  I  said,  "  All  right,  orders  are  orders  ;  I 
will  go  and  get  a  pass." 

The  joke  was  that  the  man  on  guard  was 
a  patient  of  my  own  and  knew  me  well,  but 
he  was  quite  right. 

On  more  than  one  occasion  Rhodes  has 
been  stopped  at  the  barrier,  and  asked  for 
his  permit  ;  and  at  one  barrier,  where  the 
orders  were  to  search  everybody,  the  guard 
stopped  him  and  told  him  that  he  would 
have  to  be  searched.  Rhodes  fumed  and 
blustered,  and  said  he  had  never  heard  of 
such  insolence,  but  the  guard  was  firm  ; 
so  Rhodes  burst  out  laughing  and  produced 
a  permit  to  pass  the  barrier  without  being 
searched.  He  was  just  trying  it  on.  What- 
ever else  he  may  be,  he  is  no  coward  ;  he 
goes  through   the  barrier  and  rides  far  out  on 


IIIK    CONNINU-TOWEK. 


[/  ilj^f     M. 


XTbe  Boers  Stride  iftrst  15 

the  veldt  almost  every  afternoon  with  only 
one  or  two  friends  and  no  escort  at  all.  He 
always  wears  white  flannel  trousers,  and  is 
most  conspicuous.  Nothing  could  save  him  if 
a  Boer  chose  to  lie  in  wait  and  pot  him  with 
a  long-range  shot  ;  and  as  the  Mauser  rifle 
which  the  Boers  use  carries  well  over  a  mile, 
the  shooter  could  be  well  in  amongst  his  own 
people  long  before  any  of  ours  could  get  a 
chance  at  him. 

That  this  could  easily  happen  is  shown  by 
what  did  happen  on  October  20th.  A  patrol 
of  the  Mounted  Volunteers  (Diamond  Fields 
Horse)  was  out  scouting  early  in  the  morning  ; 
no  Boers  were  seen  anywhere  about,  when  a 
shot  was  fired,  and  one  of  the  sergeants  fell 
off  his  horse — dead.  The  men  hunted  every- 
where round  about,  but  could  not  find  a  sign 
or  footprint  of  anybody.  The  modern  ammu- 
nition is  smokeless  powder,  so  no  smoke  was 
seen  and  no  one  knows  who  fired  the  shot. 

On  the  same  day  we  heard  that  the  Boers 
had  issued  a  proclamation  declaring  Bechuana- 
land  to  be  Transvaal,  and  Griqualand  West 
Orange  Free  State,  territory  ;  but  of  course 
our   commander,  Colonel    Kekewich,    promptly 


i6  BesicoeC)  by  tbe  IBocvs 

issued  a  counter-proclamation,  warning  all  loyal 
subjects  not  to  have  any  truck  with  such 
foolishness,  as  these  territories  were  still 
British,  in  spite  of  the  Boer  proclamation. 

Kekewich  is  the  colonel  in  command  of  the 
Lancashires  ;  he  is  a  Devonshire  man,  though 
his  name  does  not  sound  like  it,  and  is  a 
splendid  fellow.  Everybody  likes  him.  He 
is  the  head  of  the  whole  business,  and  must 
have  an  anxious  time,  as  he  is  responsible  for 
everything.  I  think  I  told  you  that  a  big 
look-out  had  been  put  up  on  top  of  the  most 
centrally  situated  mine-head  gear.  This  must 
be  about  a  hundred  and  twenty  feet  above  the 
street  level,  and  gives  a  splendid  view  of  all 
the  surrounding  country  ;  and  here  the  colonel 
spends  most  of  his  day,  watching  what  the 
Boers — and  our  own  men  too,  for  that  matter — 
are  up  to.  The  top  of  this  tower  is  in  tele- 
phonic communication  with  all  the  forts,  so 
that  orders  are  sent  from  it  to  all  points  with 
great  rapidity. 

At  night  there  are  strong  electric  searchlights 
in  commanding  positions  at  the  forts,  and  they 
are  at  work  during  all  the  dark  hours,  so  that 
it  is    impossible    for    the    Boers    to    make   any 


l-'yi,m  II  phi,li,<^ral>li  liy  M.  Ikiiiiill.] 

THE    SKARCIt-    AM)    SKlNAI.-I.inilT,    WESSF.I.TOV. 


[Pai;i:  i6. 


Uhc  Boers  Stride  3fitst  17 

advance  without  its  being  at  once  seen.  That 
is  the  advantage  of  having  an  immensely 
wealthy  company  like  De  Beers'  in  the  place, 
rhey  have  skilled  mechanics  and  electricians, 
and  machinery  and  appliances,  to  do  almost 
anything,  and  a  jolly  mess  we  should  have 
been  in  without  them.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
though,  we  should  never  have  been  besieged 
but  for  the  mines.  The  Boers  openly  gave 
out  that  they  wanted  to  take  Rhodes  prisoner 
and  to  blow  up  his  mines,  and  did  not  wish 
to  injure  anybody  else. 

After  the  first  alarm  the  De  Beers  people 
brought  in  all  or  a  great  part  of  their  cattle 
from  their  outlying  farms,  and  herded  about 
fifteen  hundred  of  them  just  outside  Kenilworth. 
Having  failed  to  do  much  by  cutting  off  our 
water  supply,  the  Boers  thought  they  would 
next  try  for  our  food  supply,  and  I  suppose 
their  natural  love  of  cattle  stirred  them  up 
too,  for  if  there  is  anything  that  a  Boer  will 
risk  his  immortal  soul   to  get,  it  is  cattle. 


CHAPTER    II 
FIGHTING    AND    RAIDING 

ON  Tuesday,  October  24th,  a  patrol  of  our 
men  was  out,  and  ran  across  a  strong 
force  of  Boers,  whose  object  was  evidently  to 
raid  these  cattle.  A  brisk  engagement  ensued 
about  six  miles  out.  Reinforcements  went  out 
to  our  men,  but  owing  to  their  being  guided  by 
a  man  who  did  not  know  the  ground  well,  they 
got  into  difficulties,  and  were  well  peppered 
by  a  body  of  Boers  who  had  taken  up  their 
position  behind  the  bank  of  a  dry  dam,  of 
the  existence  of  which  the  guide  was  ignorant. 
The  colonel,  seeing  there  was  likely  to  be 
a  defeat,  sent  out  some  of  the  Lancashires 
in  the  armoured  train,  and  they  cleared  the 
Boers  out  in  style,  and  converted  what  was  very 
nearly  a  disaster  to  our  men  into  at  any  rate 
a   drawn  game.     The   Boers   drew  off,   and  so 

did  we.     The  butcher's   bill   on  our  side  was 

18 


ifiabtfn^  an^  IRaiMng  19 

pretty  heavy — three  killed  and  about  twenty- 
five  wounded,  four  of  them  severely.  Out  of 
the  wounded,  three  were  officers,  and  two 
of  them  were  severely  damaged,  the  bullets 
having  splintered  up  the  thigh-bone  in  both 
cases. 

The  Boer  loss  was  not,  and  never  will  be, 
known,  but  must  have  been  pretty  heavy.  The 
only  certain  thing  about  it  was  that  their  com- 
mandant was  killed.  He  was  left  on  the  field 
when  the  Boers  retired,  and,  being  a  man  from 
Boshof  and  well  known  in  Kimberley,  he  was 
easily  identified  by  our  people.  He  was  in 
Kimberley  on  the  Saturday  afternoon  that  all 
the  forces  were  reviewed,  and  is  reported  to 
have  rather  sneered  at  the  show,  saying  it 
would  just  be  a  nice  handful  for  the  Boers. 
Thank  goodness  he  got  his  dose  early,  and 
as  he  was  well  known  and  popular  among  the 
Boers,  his  death  jarred  them  up  considerably. 

We  had  a  pretty  busy  time  at  the  hospital 
when  the  wounded  came  in.  I  got  five  of 
them  under  my  hands,  but  only  two  were  more 
than  trifles — an  officer  shot  through  the  chest 
and  a  sergeant  shot  through  the  arm,  splinter- 
ing up  the  bone.     We  doctors  had  all  of  us 


20  36esieoc^  b>?  tbe  "SSocxe 

seen  a  few  bullet  wounds  with  revolvers 
and  such  like,  but  had  no  experience  of  the 
modern  rifle  bullet,  and  it  was  a  revelation  to  us. 
The  bullet,  especially  of  the  Mauser  rifle  which 
the  Dutch  use,  is  so  small  and  travels  with 
such  velocity  that  it  drills  clean  through 
everything,  and  unless  it  strikes  a  vital  part, 
or  hits  a  bone  or  big  artery,  the  injury  it 
inflicts  is  ridiculous.  The  officer  shot  through 
the  chest  left  the  hospital  on  the  eighth  day, 
and  returned  to  duty  on  the  ninth,  and  his 
duty  consisted  of  at  least  twelve  miles'  riding 
every  day.  Wounds  through  the  fleshy  parts 
heal  in  a  couple  of  days,  and  give  no  trouble 
after  a  week. 

But  a  Mauser  bullet  will  drive  clean  through 
anything.  One  poor  chap  in  another  engage- 
ment was  shot  in  the  ribs  of  the  right  side,  far 
back,  and  the  bullet  travelled  right  through 
him  in  a  slanting  direction  and  came  out  at  the 
outer  side  of  the  left  thigh,  about  its  middle, 
cutting  the  spine  right  across  on  its  way  and 
completely  paralysing  him.  He  only  lived  a 
few  hours.  Another  bullet  in  this  Dronfield 
fight  of  which  I  have  been  speaking  hit  the 
ammunition    box    of   the    Maxim    gun.      The 


ammunition  is  carried  in  a  stout  canvas  belt, 
like  the  leather  thing  they  call  a  bandolier. 
The  box  is  stout,  and  the  cartridges  are  solid 
brass  (not  cardboard),  and  yet  the  bullet  drove 
through  the  box,  and  through  no  less  than 
ten  cartridges,  with  the  intervening  twenty 
thicknesses  of  canvas,  and  none  of  the  cart- 
ridges exploded. 

After  this  brush,  things  were  very  quiet 
for  several  days.  We  got  news  of  some  of 
the  Natal  fights,  and  heard  that  the  Boers 
had  been  repulsed  from  Mafeking  every  time 
they  tried  to  take  it,  which  encouraged  us 
a  good  deal.  There  were  many  disquieting 
rumours,  though,  as  to  the  strength  of  the 
Boers  and  the  big  siege-guns  they  were 
bringing  to  bombard  us  with.  The  alarmists 
talked  glibly  about  forty-pounders,  as  if  you 
could  carry  them  about  in  your  waistcoat 
pocket,  though  our  artillerymen  told  us  that 
a  forty-pounder  is  so  heavy  that  it  would 
take  about  seventy  mules  or  oxen  to  drag  it. 
This,  however,  was  a  detail  which  the  alarmists 
ignored.  They  could  raise  the  mules  right 
enough,  but  that  they  would  get  a  heavy  gun 
eighty    miles    across    country    without     a    foot 


22  Besieged  by  tbe  Boers 

of  metalled  road  in  the  whole  distance  seemed 
to  me  too  big  a  job  for  their  size. 

All  on  from  October  8  th  we  had  beautiful 
rains  at  intervals  of  a  few  days,  and  the  water 
came  in  very  handy.  I  got  in  another  big 
water-tank  and  arranged  my  water-pipes  to 
run  into  it.  During  every  rain  I  slopped 
around  with  a  bucket  and  a  mackintosh, 
filling  every  available  receptacle  just  like  old 
times  at  home.  Our  garden  was  coming  on 
beautifully  when  we  had  to  give  up  watering 
it,  but  the  rains  kept  it  just  going,  and  I 
managed  to  keep  the  vines  and  vegetables  alive 
with  bath  and  slop-water.  At  first  we  filled 
the  tanks  and  kept  them  as  a  reserve  in  case 
the  water  in  the  reservoir  gave  out  before 
we  were  relieved,  but  by  the  time  we  had 
been  shut  up  about  three  weeks  the  De  Beers 
Company,  as  usual,  came  to  the  rescue. 

One  of  their  mines,  Wesselton,  has  a  big 
stream  of  underground  water  in  it,  and  this 
water  has  for  the  last  year  or  two  been  pumped 
into  a  dam  at  Kenilworth,  from  which  it  is 
taken  to  the  floors  and  used  for  washing  the 
"  blue  "  or  diamondiferous  earth.  In  one  place 
this  water-main  ran  not  very  far  from  the  water 


fiQbtim  anb  IRafMno  23 

company's  main,  so  De  Beers'  put  on  a  lot 
of  niggers  and  joined  the  two,  and  were  then 
able  to  pump  from  Wesselton  to  the  reservoir. 
So  we  had  a  good  supply  of  water  once  more, 
much  harder  than  our  regular  supply  from 
the  Vaal  River,  but  quite  good  all  the  same, 
and  quite  sufficient  for  all  purposes  except 
watering  gardens.  After  this  supply  was  fixed 
up,  we  felt  quite  safe  in  using  any  rain-water 
we  saved  for  the  garden,  and  did  so  ;  but  a 
good  many  of  the  shallow  rooted  things  had 
died,  though  the  vegetables  were  flourishing. 

The  first  rumour  about  the  waterworks  had 
been  that  the  Boers  had  blown  up  the  pump- 
ing machinery  on  the  first  day  of  the  siege, 
but  this  turned  out  to  be  incorrect.  They 
took  possession  of  it  and  of  the  enginemen, 
and  were  going  to  blow  it  up,  but  a  wily 
engineman  is  reported  to  have  said  :  "  Why 
do  you  destroy  your  own  property  ?  When 
you  have  taken  Kimberley,  you  will  want  a 
water  supply  just  the  same,  and  it  will  cost 
a  good  deal  to  replace  the  machinery."  He 
went  on  to  suggest  that  they  could  cut  off 
the  Kimberley  water  and  do  themselves  a  good 
turn  at  the  same   time  by  pulling   up   the   pipes 


24  :tecsieoe&  b\i  tbe  Boers 

at  a  place  six  miles  from  the  river  where  they 
ran  through  a  pan  which  had  water  in  it  only 
after  very  heavy  rains  ;  then  they  could  pump 
river-water  into  this  pan,  and  thus  have  a 
watering  place  for  their  horses  much  nearer 
Kimberley.  The  Boers  tumbled  to  this  plan 
and  carried  it  out.  Of  course  the  engineman's 
idea  was  to  try  and  save  the  pumps  if  possible, 
but  the  Boers  have  laid  dynamite  ready  to 
blow  them  up  if  they  have  to  retreat,  and 
they  probably  will  do  so  unless  the  wily  man 
manages  to  wet  the  dynamite. 

The  hotel-keeper  at  Riverton  where  we  have 
stayed  several  times  is  said  to  be  doing  a 
roaring  trade,  as  the  Boers  are  paying  him 
for  all  they  take,  but  this  was  arranged  by  the 
commandant  who  was  shot.  He  was  a  great 
friend  of  the  hotel-keeper's.  Whether  this 
state  of  things  will  go  on  now,  nobody  knows, 
but  the  Boers  are  quite  equal  to  demanding 
every  penny  he  has  and  then  shooting  him 
when  they  retreat.  That  is  what  one  is  afraid 
of  for  the  outlying  people.  So  long  as  all 
goes  well  with  them,  the  Boers  may  be  fairly 
civil,  but  when  they  are  beaten  and  have  to 
retreat,  there  is   no  dastardly  cruelty  of  which 


they  might  not  be  guilty.  The  cowardly 
brutes  have  said  that  in  that  case  they  intend 
to  shoot  men,  women,  and  children.  On 
the  other  hand,  if  they  were  to  win,  their 
programme,  as  laid  down  by  their  own  rabble, 
is  "  to  shoot  all  the  Englishmen  and  to  give 
their  women  to  the  Kaffirs."  These  are  the 
people  of  whom  Olive  Schreiner  writes,  "  The 
simple  God-fearing  farmer,"  etc.,  etc. 

All  this  time  we  were,  of  course,  under 
martial  law  and  not  allowed  out  between  9  p.m. 
and  6  a.m.  without  a  permit.  Many  special 
constables  were  sworn  in,  and  patrolled  the 
streets  at  night  in  pairs,  one  with  a  rifle  and 
the  other  with  a  revolver.  At  first  they  were 
very  energetic,  and  it  was  "  Halt  !  Who  goes 
there  ?  Advance  one  and  give  the  counter- 
sign "  at  about  every  hundred  yards.  After  a 
week  or  two  they  quieted  down  a  bit,  but  are 
still  fairly  lively,  particularly  if  you  are  in  a 
cab  driving  at  night.  A  few  nights  ago  I  was 
stopped  in  a  cab  by  a  most  ferocious  individual. 
He  yelled  out :  "  Why  don't  you  stop  ?  If  you 
don't  stop  the  minute  I  challenge,  be  God 
I'll  shoot  ! "  At  least,  that  was  the  sense  of 
what    he  said,   but   his  accent  was  beyond  me  ; 


26  JSesicaeD  bp  tbe  Boers 

however,  thinking  it  over,  I  came  to  the 
conclusion  that  he  was  either  a  Jew  drunk 
on  Scotch  whiskey  or  an  Irishman  ditto  with 
German  beer. 

After  the  Dronfield  fight  on  October  24th 
nothing  happened  in  the  war  department  for 
a  long  time,  but  I  was  pretty  busy  medically, 
and  a  case  of  smallpox  developed  down  in 
Beaconsfield,  which  made  rather  a  scare,  but 
the  man  and  another  man  who  shared  his  room 
were  promptly  taken  out  to  the  lazaretto,  and 
no  further  cases  developed. 

On  the  31st  we  received  our  first  intimation 
that  the  Boers  had  got  some  artillery  with  them, 
as  they  fired  some  shots  from  a  field-gun  at  a 
patrol  of  our  men  which  was  out  in  the  Free 
State  direction  to  the  north-east  of  Kimberley, 
but  no  one  was  hit. 

On  November  ist  about  2  p.m.  we  heard 
a  tremendous  explosion,  and  on  looking  round 
saw  a  huge  column  of  smoke  to  the  north, 
over  the  dynamite  magazines,  so  we  guessed 
that  the  Boers  had  blown  up  the  De  Beers' 
stock  of  dynamite,  and  this  afterwards  turned 
out  to  be  true.  This  dynamite  had  been  stored 
in   the  town,  but  the  Town  Council  got  scared, 


3figbtina  auD  TRaiDing  27 

fearing  that  if  bombardment  took  place  and  a 
shell  struck  it,  it  would  blow  the  whole  town 
to  bits,  so  they  had  it  removed  some  distance 
out.  The  De  Beers  people  used  to  fetch  in 
what  they  wanted  every  day,  but  on  this  same 
morning  the  Boers  had  fired  on  them  when 
they  were  going  out,  and  so  they  had  to  return 
without  any. 

The  Company  was  very  angry  with  the 
Town  Council  about  this,  because  they  said 
that  they  could  have  kept  the  dynamite 
with  perfect  safety  inside  the  town  limits,  by 
dividing  it  up  into  small  lots,  and  keeping  these 
in  separate  places.  The  mines  had  to  be  shut 
down  very  soon  after  this  for  want  ot  dvnamite, 
but  it  did  not  really  make  much  difference, 
as  they  ran  short  of  fuel  only  a  few  days  after. 
On  this  same  day,  too,  we  started  on  brown 
bread  by  military  order.  There  was  a  far  larger 
stock  of  coarse  meal  than  of  flour  in  the  town, 
so  the  colonel  ordered  the  making  ot  white 
bread  to  cease,  and  all  the  bread  to  be  made 
of  three-quarter  meal  and  quarter  flour. 

On  the  2nd  a  smaller  dynamite  magazine 
was  blown  up,  but  it  only  made  a  very  small 
explosion    compared    with    the    first    one.     On 


28  Besieoe^  bv  tbe  Boers 

this  day  a  Jewish  patient  of  mine  amused 
me  very  much.  He  had  a  store  out  at 
Windsorton,  but  he  and  his  family  lived  in 
Kimberley.  He  managed  to  get  out  to  his 
store  to  see  how  things  were  going  on,  and 
the  Boers  had  not  interfered  with  him,  beyond 
frightening  the  soul  out  of  him  with  their 
boasting.  They  told  him  that  they  had  shelled 
Mafeking  and  killed  everybody  in  it,  and  that 
they  were  going  to  do  the  same  for  Kimberley. 
He  came  straight  back  to  fetch  his  wife  and 
family  out  to  the  store  "  for  safety,"  though  his 
wife  had  only  been  confined  a  fortnight.  He 
must  have  been  badly  scared,  for  he  said  the 
Boers  had  commandeered  a  hundred  pounds' 
worth  of  goods  from  his  store,  but  "  that 
is  nothing."  For  a  Hebrew  to  call  a  hundred 
pounds  "  nothing,"  means  that  he  is  off"  his 
head  with  funk.  I  asked  him  what  the  Dutch 
said  of  the  Dronfield  fight,  and  he  replied 
that  they  had  told  him  they  had  killed  forty 
English,  wounded  one  hundred,  and  captured 
one  hundred   and   fifty  horses. 

*'  You  know  yourself,"  I  said,  "  that  four 
were  killed  and  twenty-five  wounded  that  day, 
so  how  can  you  believe   them  in  other   things 


jfiabtin^  ant)  IRaiMng  29 

when  they  lie  so  frightfully  about  the  things 
you  do  know  ?  " 

To  my  great  surprise,  he  decided  to  stay 
in  town,  but  I  did  not  at  all  expect  he  would 
be  so  sensible. 

The  next  day  (November  3rd)  was  a  very 
anxious  day.  The  alarm  sounded  at  lo  a.m., 
the  Boers  again  trying  to  raid  the  Kenilworth 
cattle,  but  after  a  good  deal  of  long-range 
firing  they  were  driven  off,  only  one  man 
of  ours  being  wounded.  The  men  had  just 
got  in,  when  another  attack  seemed  likely  on 
the  opposite  side  of  the  town.  There  was 
pretty  heavy  fighting  there  for  a  couple  ot 
hours,  and  we  got  our  first  sound  of  artillery 
fire,  our  guns  backing  up  our  mounted  men, 
and  blazing  away  well.  Between  them  they 
managed  to  drive  the  Boers  off,  with  two 
men  on  our  side  wounded.  Dr.  Watkins  got 
a  man  wounded  through  the  right  lung,  who 
ultimately  did  quite  well,  and  I  got  a  poor 
chap  who  was  shot  in  the  side  of  the  head, 
and  who  died  on  the  operating-table  as  I  was 
seeing  if  anything  could  be  done  for  him. 

The  sanitary  system  here  is  a  pail  system. 
All  the  closets  have  pails,  and  these  are  taken 


30  Beeieae^  b^  tbe  Boers 

away,  and  fresh  ones  put  in,  every  other  night. 
The  full  pails  are  carted  away  in  big  covered 
vans  that  always  remind  me  of  the  menagerie 
vans  that  used  to  come  through  Garton  on 
the  way  from  Roos  to  Aldborough.  There 
are  a  good  many  of  these  vans,  and  they  take 
a  lot  of  oxen  to  draw  them.  The  work  is 
done  by  short-sentence  native  prisoners,  under 
proper  guards,  and  vans,  oxen,  and  natives — 
in  fact,  the  whole  plant — are  kept  at  a  big 
compound,  a  mile  from  town. 

On  this  afternoon  the  Boers  made  their 
attack  from  this  quarter,  and  began  by  raiding 
all  the  vans  and  the  oxen  that  pulled  them. 
This  looked  like  altogether  disorganising  the 
sanitary  service,  and  in  the  afternoon  edition 
of  the  paper  (a  piece  the  size  of  a  single  sheet 
of  notepaper,  price  threepence)  a  request  was 
issued  to  all  householders  to  dig  holes  three 
feet  deep  in  their  gardens  or  yards,  and  empty 
their  pails  into  them,  adding  a  covering  of 
earth.  This  looked  all  right,  but  how  to  dig 
a  three-foot  hole  when  eighteen  inches  brought 
you  down  to  solid  rock,  as  it  does  in  some 
parts  of  the  town,  was  not  explained  by  the 
authorities.     Then,  again,  for   every  man  who 


I.IKL'T. -COLONEL    K.    (i.     KKKKWICIL 


[Page  30. 


jfigbting  an&  IRaiMna  31 

would  carry  this  scheme  out  properly,  there 
would  certainly  be  ten  who  were  too  idle  or 
careless  to  bother  about  it.  On  the  face  of 
it,  this  plan  was  no  good.  I  did  my  own 
scavenging  for  one  day,  but  then  the  sanitary 
contractors  managed  to  carry  out  their  work 
with  other  plant,  and  so  this  difficulty  was 
got  over. 

On  the  next  day  everything  started  quiet, 
but  the  De  Beers'  steam  "  hooter "  went  at 
noon,  because  a  party  of  Boers  were  hover- 
ing round  Wesselton  in  a  threatening  way. 
Our  people  dropped  a  few  shells  about  their 
ears,  and  they  concluded  that  they  did  not 
want  Wesselton  as  badly  as  they  had  thought. 
On  this  day  (November  4th)  we  heard  of  the 
twelve  hundred  men  in  Natal  who  had  pursued 
the  Boers  too  far  and  been  obHged  to  sur- 
render when  their  ammunition  gave  out,  and 
very  sick  we  felt  about  it.  I  also  heard  of  the 
packet  of  dynamite  that  had  been  found  under 
the  big  bridge  in  the  centre  of  the  town.  A 
policeman  went  under  the  bridge,  and  some 
men  scuttled  away,  leaving  a  parcel  behind 
them  which  turned  out  to  be  dynamite.  As 
a   matter    of    fact,    unless    a    hole    had    been 


32  3Besieae^  b^  tbe  Boers 

drilled  deep  and  the  dynamite  properly  put  in 
it,  there  was  not  enough  to  burst  the  bridge. 
But  it  showed  plainly  what  we  all  knew  quite 
well,  that  we  had  traitors  in  the  camp. 

When  the  trouble  first  began,  and  martial 
law  was  proclaimed,  a  court-martial  was 
established.  Its  members  were  partly  Army 
officers,  and  partly  civilians.  The  civilians 
were  the  resident  magistrates  of  Kimberley 
and  Beaconsfield,  the  Civil  Commissioner  of 
Kimberley,  and  one  of  the  High  Court  judges. 
This  court  tried  all  people  who  broke  the 
martial  law  provisions,  such  as  those  who  were 
out  after  hours  without  permits,  who  broke 
through  the  barriers,  or  had  arms  in  their 
possession  illegally,  or  who  were  in  any  way 
in  communication  with  the  Boers.  In  theory 
the  constitution  of  the  court  seemed  all  right, 
but  in  practice  it  was  absurd.  The  military 
members  were  too  full  of  more  important  work 
to  attend,  and  so  the  civilians  had  it  all  their 
own  way.  They  were  all  men  who  had  to  do 
with  civil  law  cases,  and  consequently  were 
always  wanting  minute  and  conclusive  evidence 
before  they  convicted  a  man.  That  is  all  right 
in   civil   work,  but  it   is  no  use  in  a  case  like 


ours.  What  was  wanted  was  a  court  of  men 
who  knew  no  law,  but  understood  common 
sense.  A  court  Uke  this  would  have  decided 
that  if  there  was  the  shadow  of  suspicion 
against  a  man,  it  would  be  safer  to  gaol  him 
out  of  harm's  way  until  the  siege  was  over. 

But  this  court  was  ruled  by  the  superior 
officer  of  the  others  in  ordinary  times,  and 
most  offenders  were  dismissed  with  a  caution. 
Everybody  was  very  disgusted  with  the  court 
in  consequence.  On  one  occasion  some  men 
were  seen  on  a  debris  heap  waving  flags  to  the 
Boers,  whilst  they  (the  Boers)  were  actually 
firing  shells  into  the  town.  Some  police  went 
and  collared  the  men,  and  then  this  extra- 
ordinary court  asked  the  police  whether  they 
could  positively  swear  that  their  captures  were 
the  men  who  waved  the  flags.  As  the  heap 
was  half  a  mile  off,  of  course  the  police  could 
not  swear  to  them,  so  they  were  dismissed  with 
the  usual  caution. 

On  this  same  day  (November  4th)  there 
was  a  rumour  that  the  Boers  had  sent  an 
"  ultimatum  "  to  the  colonel  that  if  he  did 
not  surrender  in  twenty-four  hours,  they  would 
bombard  the  town.      Whether  true  or  not,  this 

3 


34  Besieaeb  b^  tbe  3Boers 

yarn  was  widely  believed,  and  many  people  ex- 
pected the  shelling  would  begin  at  daybreak  on 
the  6th,  but  it  did  not.  They  fired  two  shells 
at  sunset  at  Wesselton  mine,  and  we  thought  we 
were  in  for  a  night  bombardment.  The  hooters 
went,  and  every  one  turned  out  to  his  post,  but 
nothing  happened. 

This  was  the  last  we  heard  of  the  hooters, 
and  everybody  was  glad.  It  was  a  weird, 
ghastly  sounding  alarm,  and  scared  nervous 
people  out  of  their  senses,  so  the  colonel 
stopped  it  and  instituted  a  cone  alarm,  like  a 
wind  cone  on  a  pier,  but  so  far  I  have  never 
seen  it.  The  hooter  was  the  one  used  to 
tell  the  miners  their  time,  and  we  were  used 
to  two  blasts  from  it  when  the  shifts  changed, 
three  times  a  day,  but  the  three  blasts  fre- 
quently repeated  during  this  part  of  the  siege 
fairly  gave  one  the  horrors,  especially  at  night. 
It  will  be  a  long  time  before  we  forget  those 
three  blasts,  and  when  things  are  settled  and 
we  start  our  usual  two  again,  it  will  be  some 
time  before  we  give  up  pricking  up  our  ears 
and  listening  for  the  third  hoot  when  we  hear 
the  first  two. 


CHAPTER   III 

THE  BOMBARDMENT  BEGINS 

OUR  long-expected  bombardment  began 
on  the  next  day  (November  yth),  and  it 
was  a  feeble  business.  The  Boers  fixed  a  gun 
on  a  kopje  about  four  miles  out  Spytfontein 
way,  and  commenced  trying  to  shell  us.  They 
fired  about  twenty  shells  in  all,  and  no  damage 
whatever  was  done.  A  very  few — only  two  or 
three — reached  the  town,  and  they  fell  in  the 
street,  and  no  injury  whatever  was  done  either 
to  people  or  property.  The  gun  was  so  far 
off  that  we  could  not  hear  much  of  a  report 
when  it  went  off,  and  the  shells  burst  with 
an  insignificant  noise — that  is,  when  they  did 
burst  at  all,  but  the  majority  of  them  did  not 
burst.  The  corruption  of  the  Boer  Govern- 
ment had  recoiled  on  themselves,  and  whoever 
supplied  the  shells  had  supplied  apparently  a 
job  lot  of  old  stuff,  and  had  no  doubt  charged 

35 


36  Besieoet)  b^  tbe  Boers 

full  price,  and  a  little  over,  for  them.  Report 
says  that  some  of  the  shells  which  did  not  burst 
were  filled  with  sawdust  instead  of  powder, 
but  I  do  not  know  whether  this  is  really  true 
or  not.  One  shell  fell  in  the  same  street 
as  Ruffel's  shop,  where  my  office  is,  but  about 
one  hundred  and  fifty  yards  higher  up.  It  is 
said  to  have  exploded  within  a  few  yards  of 
an  Irish  policeman,  but  all  the  notice  he  took 
of  it  was  to  remark,  *'  Begob,  fwhat  will  they 
be  playin'  at  next  .^  "  For  the  truth  of  this, 
however,  I  will  not  be  responsible  either. 
Several  of  these  shells  fell  not  far  from  the 
house  of  a  patient  of  mine,  which  is  in  a 
prominent  position  and  easy  to  see  from  a 
distance  ;  but  the  lady  of  the  house  sat  quietly 
on  the  verandah  without  turning  a  hair,  being 
rather  amused  than  otherwise.  She  gave  me  a 
chunk  of  one  of  the  shells  as  a  memento. 

Next  day  we  were  waked  before  six  by  three 
cannon  shots  which  sounded  very  close,  and 
after  the  shot  we  could  hear  the  shell  explode 
each  time,  so  we  thought  that  the  Boers  had 
got  hold  of  a  better  lot  of  stuff,  and  really 
meant  business  this  time,  but  it  turned  out 
afterwards  that  it  was  our  own  guns  firing. 


Ube  Bombar&ment  Begins  37 

On  the  9th  Agnes  started  with  influenza, 
and  had  to  give  up  her  refugee  work  at  last. 
I  was  very  busy,  and  could  not  look  after 
her  much  myself,  so  I  got  a  nurse  to  attend 
to  her,  and  she  got  all  right  in  a  few  days. 

The  loth  was  a  quiet  day.  No  bombarding 
took  place,  but  the  armoured  train  was  fired 
on  by  the  Boers  as  it  went  to  try  and  re- 
connoitre to  the  northward. 

Next  day  (the  nth)  we  had  a  pretty  hot 
time.  The  Boers  had  brought  their  guns 
nearer  and  to  a  different  position,  and  began 
shelHng  at  5.15  a.m.  They  had  got  the 
range  by  this  time,  and  almost  every  shell 
landed  in  the  town.  I  had  to  go  out  early 
to  a  case,  and  went  down  into  the  main  road 
opposite  the  end  of  the  house,  and  stood 
talking  there  to  a  friend  who  had  been 
watching  the  shells  falling  farther  up  the 
town.  I  was  only  out  about  a  quarter  of 
an  hour,  and  had  just  got  into  the  garden, 
when  I  heard  the  Boer  cannon  fire,  and  in 
a  few  seconds  the  unmistakable  "  whiz "  of 
a  shell,  followed  at  once  by  its  explosion, 
let  me  know  that  trouble  was  mighty  near. 
I  went  out  to  see  where  it  had   burst,  and 


38  Besiegeb  b^  tbe  Boers 

found  it  was  in  the  main  road  close  by.  One 
piece  struck  a  Kaffir  woman  on  the  back  of 
the  head  and  knocked  her  brains  out,  and 
she  fell  on  the  pavement  and  died  in  a  few 
minutes,  not  a  hundred  yards  from  our  house 
in  a  straight  line,  in  Dutoitspan  Road,  near 
the  club.  Another  woman  who  was  walking 
with  her  was  not  touched.  Another  piece  of 
the  shell  cut  a  thickish  branch  off  a  tree 
exactly  where  I  had  stood  talking  to  my 
friend  a  quarter  of  an  hour  before. 

This  was  getting  near  with  a  vengeance, 
and  I  did  not  at  all  like  it,  as  our  house 
stood  a  good  chance  of  getting  hit,  being  two- 
storied,  while  all  the  others  around  it  were 
only  one  story  high.  However,  though  they 
shelled  away  for  two  hours  in  the  morning 
and  two  more  in  the  afternoon,  nobody  else 
was  touched,  and  no  other  shell  came  as  near 
as  this  one. 

After  this  the  Boers  kept  their  guns  in  the 
same  position  and  fired  at  us  in  a  half-hearted 
sort  of  way  every  day  except  Sunday  for  a 
whole  week  ;  we  had  shells  in  town  on  the 
1 2th,  13th,  14th,  15th,  1 6th,  17th,  and  i8th. 
They  generally  began  soon  after  daylight,  and 


Ube  Bombarbment  Begins  39 

went  on  for  an  hour  or  two,  till  they  got 
tired,  or  possibly  till  they  knocked  off  for 
breakfast,  and  they  usually  treated  us  to  an 
hour  or  two's  performance  in  the  afternoon 
again.  During  the  seven  days  of  active  bom- 
bardment they  fired  at  least  seven  hundred 
shells  into  the  town,  and  the  amount  of 
damage  done  both  to  life  and  property  was 
so  small   that  it  would   hardly   be  believed. 

The  Boers  fancy  the  Lord  fights  for  them. 
If  they  knew  how  little  they  had  hurt  us 
with  their  shells,  I  think  they  would  want 
a  new  ally,  or  else  think  that  their  old  one 
was  helping  us. 

Besides  the  Kaffir  woman,  no  one  was  killed, 
but  a  Dutchwoman  died  of  fright  when  a  shell 
burst  near  her  house.  A  Dutchman,  too, 
was  driving  a  fare  in  his  cab  when  a  shell 
dropped  on  his  horses,  killing  one  outright 
and  breaking  his  own  arm,  but  not  damaging 
the  fare  in  the  least.  Then  one  morning 
early  I  was  rung  up,  and  an  unmistakable 
Hebrew  voice  yelled  up  my  speaking  tube  : 
"  Come  down  at  once  ;  a  shell  has  went  through 
my  arm."  I  thought  he  probably  hadn't  much 
arm    left    after    this,    but    found    that    it    was 


40  3Besicae^  b^  tbe  Boers 

only  a  splinter  of  the  shell  after  all.  He  had 
been  lying  in  bed,  and  a  shell  had  dropped 
through  the  roof  and  burst  in  his  room,  a  small 
piece  of  it  going  through  the  fleshy  part  of 
his  arm,  without  touching  the  bone.  Another 
man  was  said  to  have  been  grazed  by  a 
splinter  on  the  same  day,  and  this  is  the 
sum  total  of  the  personal  damage  done  by 
all  those  shells. 

On  the  other  hand  the  narrow  escapes 
were  numerous,  and  some  of  them  were  simply 
miraculous.  One  day  a  shell  came  into  the 
Queen's  Hotel.  It  just  missed  the  dining- 
room  where  quite  thirty  people  were  at  lunch, 
and  dropped  into  the  pantry  adjoining  it. 
As  luck  would  have  it,  there  were  no  waiters 
in  the  pantry  just  then,  but  there  were  two 
cats,  both  of  which  were  killed,  and  the 
crockery  was  a  good  deal  smashed.  I  believe 
one  man  stayed  to  finish  his  lunch,  but  all 
the  rest  of  the  folk  lost  their  appetites  and 
cleared  out. 

On  another  day  the  shells  were  falling  near 
the  house  of  an  old  chap  (a  patient  of  mine), 
and  he  and  his  daughters  went  to  the  front 
door  to  look  out  and  see  what  was  happening. 


Zbc  JBombarbment  Begins  41 

A  shell  came  through  the  end  of  the  house, 
across  one  room,  through  the  wall,  across  the 
passage,  through  another  wall  and  into  the 
bowels  of  a  piano,  which  was  standing  up 
against  the  wall.  There  it  burst,  and  a  jolly 
old  mess  it  made  of  that  piano,  too.  It 
crossed  the  passage  within  eight  feet  of  the 
people,  and  not  one  of  them  was  even  scratched, 
but  the  piano  is  only  fit  for  the  scrap  heap. 
Another  shell  came  through  a  roof  into  a 
room  adjoining  a  bedroom  where  a  patient 
of  mine  was  lying  ill,  and  exploded,  but  did 
not  hurt  the  patient.  I  have  a  piece  of  this 
one  to  make  a  brooch  for  Agnes. 

One  shell  fell  in  an  office  on  to  a  chair 
where  a  man  had  been  sitting  writing  not 
a  minute  before,  but  who  had  got  up  to  get 
something  he  wanted  from  another  room. 
Another  fell  in  Dr.  Mathias's  front  garden, 
just  in  front  of  a  window,  as  he  and  two 
other  men  were  having  lunch  just  inside 
(this  is  the  doctor  who  has  the  honour  of 
being  dear  Maria's  employer)  ;  nobody  was 
hurt,  but  we  hoped  that  Maria  was  scared. 
Another  fell  on  the  footpath  in  front  of  a 
tobacconist's     shop      in     the     main     street,     at 


42  "BcsiCQC^  bp  tbe  Boers 

a  most  frequented  corner,  and  burst  with- 
out even  breaking  the  window.  Another 
went  through  the  English  church.  Another 
wrecked  a  small  house  where  one  of  the 
club  waiters  hved,  but  as  the  house  was  in  a 
rather  hot  corner  for  shells,  he  had  removed 
his  family  and  furniture  only  the  day  before. 

All  the  time  this  shelling  was  going  on 
It  was  rather  nervous  work  seeing  one's 
patients  in  the  part  of  the  town  where  the 
shells  were  falling.  Most  of  them  came  from 
the  same  direction,  and  if  you  were  on  foot 
when  a  gun  went  off,  you  had  plenty  of  time 
and  knew  just  where  to  shelter  ;  but  driving 
about  was  different,  as  you  did  not  hear  the 
gun,  the  rattle  of  the  cart  deadening  the 
sound. 

One  day  I  was  coming  across  the  Market 
Square  when  they  were  firing,  and  I  suddenly 
saw  a  puff  of  smoke  and  a  cloud  of  dust  in 
the  middle  of  the  street,  about  one  hundred 
yards  in  front  of  me,  and  there  a  shell  had 
burst.  As  several  had  landed  in  the  same 
neighbourhood,  I  turned  up  a  side  street,  as 
it  was  not  good  enough  to  get  my  head 
caved    in.      Dr.    Symonds    had  a   very  narrow 


XTbe  Bombardment  BcQins  43 

escape,  as  a  shell  landed  and  burst  within  ten 
yards  of  his  horses'  heads. 

Lots  of  shells  fell  in  our  forts,  but  we  put 
up  shellproof  shelters  in  them,  and  not  a  man 
was  touched.  Eighteen  fell  into  one  little 
fort  in  one  afternoon. 

Our  men  got  quite  expert  in  dodging  the 
shells.  You  heard  the  gun  boom,  and  a  few 
seconds  after  the  "  whiz  "  of  the  shell  came,  and 
you  ducked  close  under  a  wall  or  earthbank 
or  shelter  of  any  sort  that  was  handy,  and 
then  the  shell  burst  ;  immediately  every  one 
in  the  neighbourhood  tore  frantically  towards 
it  to  pick  up  the  pieces,  for  which  there  was  a 
ready  sale,  and  good  pieces,  such  as  the  bottom 
or  the  conical  point  with  the  brass  fuse  in  it, 
would  fetch  from  one  to  two  pounds.  It  was 
really  laughable  to  see  the  shell  hunters  on 
the  look-out  when  the  firing  was  hot,  and 
tearing  up  to  the  place  where  the  shells  burst 
to  collar  the  bits.  In  more  than  one  instance 
lawsuits  were  threatened  over  the  ownership 
of  pieces  of  a  shell. 

Finding  how  little  damage  was  done,  we 
soon  began  to  treat  the  bombardment  with  calm 
indifference,    and     the    hottest    day's    shelling 


44  :SBcsicQC^  bv  tbe  3Boers 

did  not  create  a  quarter  the  alarm  that  the 
hooters  used  to  do.  We  became  quite  learned 
in  shells,  too,  and  talked  glibly  of  shrapnel 
and  ring  shells,  and  time  fuses  and  percussion 
fuses,  and  all  the  rest  of  it. 

The  one  they  were  most  liberal  with,  and 
which  we  got  to  know  best,  was  the  ring  or 
segment  shell.  This  was  about  seven  inches 
high,  three  inches  in  diameter,  and  bluntly 
conical  in  shape.  It  consisted  of  a  pile  of 
rings  like  cogwheels,  but  with  a  large  space 
in  the  centre,  and  the  cogs  only  held  together 
by  very  narrow  bridges  of  iron.  They  are 
made  of  very  brittle  cast  iron,  and  piled  one 
on  top  of  another  to  the  required  height,  the 
top  ones  getting  gradually  smaller  to  give  the 
necessary  conical  shape.  Round  this  pile  a 
thin  coating  of  iron  is  cast,  and  then  the 
incomplete  shell  is  smoothed  off  in  a  lathe, 
leaving  a  smooth,  thin  coat  of  cast  iron  hold- 
ing the  cogs  in  position.  The  hollow  in  the 
centre  of  the  cogwheels  is  then  filled  with 
gunpowder,  and  just  before  it  is  fired  the 
fuse  is  screwed  into  the  point.  It  is  a  brass 
tube  about  three  inches  long,  and  about  as 
thick   as    an    ordinary    candle.      Inside    it    is    a 


liDi.K    .-^ ill. 1. 1.,    NlNlC-l'UUNUKK. 


[Page  44. 


XTbe  Boml)at&ment  JBe^tns  45 

percussion  cap,  with  a  spike  so  arranged  that 
it  fires  the  cap  when  the  nose  of  the  shell 
butts  up  against  anything  hard.  There  are 
two  copper  bands  round  the  shell.  The  one 
near  the  base  is  corrugated  when  it  reaches 
us,  but  this  is  due  to  the  rifling  in  the  cannon  ; 
the  other  one  is  quite  plain.  These  bands 
fit  themselves  to  the  grooves  in  the  gun,  being 
soft  metal,  and  do  not  damage  it  as  the  iron 
would  do.  The  corrugated  one  is  the  one 
to  make  brooches  out  of. 

When  the  shell  bursts,  the  cogwheels  are 
supposed  to  split  up  into  the  separate  cogs, 
and  these  should,  in  theory,  "  spread  death 
and  destruction  on  all  sides."  As  practised 
by  the  Boers,  however,  they  seem  to  be  a 
particularly  harmless  sort  of  firework.  Our 
artillery  officers  tell  us  this  is  because  the 
Boers  are  using  their  guns  at  the  extreme 
range  to  which  they  will  carry,  and  that  if 
they  used  them  at  two-thirds  the  distance, 
we  should  be  anything  but  amused  by  them. 
The  powder  inside  the  shell  is  only  enough  to 
burst  the  case,  but  not  to  hurl  the  fragments 
apart  with  any  degree  of  force.  If,  however, 
the  shell  bursts  whilst  it  has  still  a  big  velocity, 


46  Besiege&  b^  tbc  3Boers 

the  pieces  go  on  with  the  same  velocity,  and 
are  very  dangerous. 

Shrapnel  is  designed  on  this  plan.  The 
shell  does  not  have  to  butt  up  against  any- 
thing, but  is  arranged  to  burst  in  the  middle 
of  its  flight,  and  instead  of  cogwheels  it 
contains  several  hundred  bullets  which  scatter, 
and  really  do  manage  the  death-and-destruction 
business  very  satisfactorily.  But  these  shells 
are  very  much  heavier  than  the  other  kind, 
on  account  of  the  bullets,  and  so  will  only 
travel  about  half  the  distance  that  the  others 
do  ;  therefore,  though  a  few  were  fired  when 
our  men  were  out  near  the  Boers,  I  don't 
think  any  ever  reached  the  town. 

All  this  time  you  have  probably  been  asking 
yourselves  what  our  men  were  doing  whilst 
this  shelling  performance  was  going  on  ;  and 
there  is  only  one  answer  to  this — viz.,  cursing 
the  Government, 

When  first  there  was  any  rumour  of  trouble 
with  the  Transvaal,  they  persistently  denied 
that  anything  of  the  kind  was  possible,  and 
all  through  steadily  refused  to  let  guns  or 
police,  or  ammunition  or  soldiers,  come  up  to 
Kimberley.     In  fact,  they  hindered  any  defence 


Zhc  Bombar&ment  Beains  47 

preparations  in  every  way  they  could.  As  a 
result,  our  regular  soldiers  are  less  than  six 
hundred  in  number,  and  the  best  guns  we  have 
are  seven-pounders — i.e.,  the  weight  of  the  shell 
they  throw  is  seven  pounds. 

The  Boers  have  all  sorts  of  guns,  even  up  to 
one  hundred-pounders,  though  the  largest  they 
have  used  against  Kimberley  has  been  a  twelve- 
pounder.  The  range  of  the  gun  increases  with 
the  weight  of  the  projectile,  and  so  the  result 
was  that  the  Boers  could  place  their  guns  well 
out  of  the  reach  of  ours,  and  pump  shells  into 
us  with  perfect  safety.  Our  men  were  too  few 
to  sally  out  and  take  their  guns,  but  when- 
ever our  guns  managed  to  get  within  range  of 
the  Boers,  their  firing  was  splendid — far  and 
away  more  accurate  than  those  of  the  Boers 
— and  the  Boers  did  not  like  it  at  all.  It 
we  had  had  two  fifteen-pounders,  not  a  shell 
would  have  ever  come  into  the  town,  and 
if  we  had  had  two  thousand  men  instead  of 
seven  hundred,  no  siege  would  have  ever 
taken    place. 

1  think  I  have  nearly  told  you  everything 
of  interest  about  the  shelling.  No  there  is 
one    other   matter.      All    the    bombardment    of 


48  Besieae&  by  tbe  Boers 

the  town  came  from  the  north-west,  and  the 
people  who  lived  in  that  quarter  were  advised 
to  come  into  the  town  out  of  reach  of  the 
shells.  So  they  did,  and  a  rough  time  they 
had.  They  took  up  their  quarters  in  schools 
and  halls  and  other  available  places,  and 
were  overcrowded  and  generally  uncomfortable. 
After  a  week  of  it  they  decided  that  the 
comforts  of  their  own  homes,  even  with  the 
risk  of  shells  thrown  in,  were  preferable,  and 
so  all  of  them,  except  a  few  of  the  most 
nervous,  went  back. 

To  be  safe,  they  dug  pits  in  their  gardens 
or  back  yards,  and  roofed  them  with  firewood 
or  old  iron,  and  put  a  couple  of  layers  of 
bags  full  of  earth  on  top,  and  then  piled  loose 
earth  on  the  top  of  these,  so  that  when  any 
shelling  began  they  could  take  shelter  in  the 
pit  and  be  safe.  Heaps  of  people  had  to 
turn  out  of  their  homes  on  account  of  the 
siege,  as  they  lived  outside  the  line  of  forts, 
and  so  were  liable  to  be  shot  by  our  own 
people,  as  well  as  by  the  Dutch  in  case  of 
attack,  and  also  to  be  rushed  and  looted 
at  any  time,  even  when  there  was  no  big 
attack. 


Ube  ^Bombardment  Begins  49 

All  the  Kenilworth  people  came  into 
town  quite  early  in  the  siege,  and  are  still 
unable  to  go  home.  Then  the  natives  who 
lived  in  two  of  the  locations  were  turned 
out  and  sent  to  a  place  within  the  forts, 
as  their  huts  were  liable  to  give  cover  to 
an  attacking  force.  As  soon  as  they  were 
cleared  out,  the  huts  were  all  flattened  out 
and  destroyed. 

In  several  instances  good  houses  were  razed 
to  the  ground  for  the  same  reason,  and  in  front 
of  one  commanding  fort  all  the  garden  fences, 
etc.,  that  ran  crossway  on  were  laid  down,  so 
that  the  Boers  could  not  dodge  behind  them 
in  case  of  attack.  So  on  the  whole  our  people 
took  very  thorough  precautions  when  they 
really  did  start,  but  many  people  say  that  if  the 
Transvaal  had  started  business  a  week  sooner 
than  they  did,  they  could  have  taken  the  town 
with  the  greatest  of  ease.  I  think  a  month 
sooner  they  would  have  done,  but  not  a  week. 

All  this  has  really  brought  me  no  further 
than  November  nth,  the  day  on  which 
the  bombardment  started.  On  that  day  our 
men  (the  mounted  ones,  for  infantry  are  no  use 
against    mounted    Boers)    went   out   and   had  a 

4 


50  JBcsicQC^  b^  tbe  JBoers 

brush  with  the  enemy.  One  of  ours  was  killed, 
and  from  subsequent  native  reports  we  think 
several  Boers  were  slain.  But  our  men  were 
at  a  disadvantage,  as  they  always  were  in  these 
sorties,  for  all  round  the  town  the  bush  had 
been  cleared  and  the  Boers  could  see  them 
coming,  and  take  cover  and  wait  till  they  got 
within  range,  and  then  blaze  away.  If  they 
could  have  plucked  up  courage  to  attack  the 
town,  our  men  would  have  been  under  cover 
and  the  Boers  in  the  open,  but  that  is  not  the 
sort  of  game  they  care  for.  As  one  old  Dutch- 
woman said  to  me,  "  The  Dutch  are  very 
determined."  "  Very  determined  not  to  get 
hurt,  I  suppose  you  mean,"  was  my  answer. 

None  of  us  liked  these  sorties,  as  they 
exposed  our  men  too  much,  but  the  Boers 
would  not  give  us  a  chance  to  get  at  them, 
so  we  had  to  make  a  chance  now  and  then  to 
prevent  them  getting  too  cheeky. 

Nothing  else  happened  until  the  14th,  when 
there  were  rumours  of  an  ultimatum  from  the 
Boer  commandant  to  Colonel  Kekewich,  giving 
him  twenty-four  hours  in  which  to  surrender 
the  town,  or  he  would  bombard  it.  At  the 
time   we  hardly   beheved  this,  but   later   on  it 


Ube  Bombardment  Begins  51 

turned  out  to  have  been  quite  true,  as  in 
a  Dutch  paper  which  came  off  one  of  the 
prisoners  whom  our  men  took  one  day  later 
on,  there  was  the  full  text  of  the  commandant's 
letter  and  Kekewich's  reply.  The  latter  was 
to  the  effect  that  if  the  commandant  wanted 
Kimberley,  he  had  better  come  and  take  it,  and 
further,  that  as  the  Boers  had  been  using  the 
white  flag  for  improper  purposes,  if  any  one 
came  fooling  around  with  a  white  flag  in  future, 
he  would  probably  get  hurt,  as  all  the  officers 
had  orders  to  fire  on  all  white  flags  now. 

This  was  because  the  Boers,  with  their  usual 
deceit,  had  been  using  the  white  flag  to  get 
into  better  cover,  and  to  take  other  unfair 
advantage  of  us.  In  the  first  fight  they  sent 
a  white  flag  out,  and  when  one  of  our  men 
went  out  to  it  to  parley,  the  Dutchman  asked 
how  many  men  there  were  out  on  our  side,  were 
they  police,  or  Volunteers,  or  Regulars,  and 
many  such  impertinent  questions.  Naturally 
our  man  told  him  to  go  to  the  devil  and 
find  out,  but  the  Dutch  took  advantage  of 
the  parley  to  take  up  a  better  position. 

Again,  when  our  ambulance  waggons  were 
out    bringing    in    the   wounded   at   any   of  the 


52  Besicoe&  bp  tbe  Boers 

fights,  I  think  I  am  correct  in  stating  that  the 
Boers  invariably  fired  at  them  when  they  were 
within  range,  though  each  waggon  carried  a 
big  red-cross  flag.  And  these  are  the  gentle 
and  inoffensive  people  that  Olive  Schreiner 
prates  about  !  Brutes !  They  are  not  even 
decent  savages,  but  just  a  cross  between  a 
bushman  and  a  baboon,  only  more  ignorant 
than  either  of  their  parents. 

On  the  1 6th  our  men  had  another  brush 
just  out  to  the  north-west,  one  of  them  being 
killed  and  eight  wounded.  I  only  got  one 
of  the  wounded  this  time,  as  it  was  early  in 
the  morning,  and  the  message  to  fetch  me 
got  muddled  somehow,  so  I  was  a  little  late 
at  the  hospital.  My  man  had  four  holes  in 
him,  all  from  one  bullet.  It  went  through 
the  outer  side  of  his  left  thigh  and  through 
his  left  hand  too,  which  was  resting  on  his 
thigh  at  the  time,  but  only  one  of  the  small 
bones  of  his  hand  was  broken,  so  he  was  soon 
all  right  again. 

On  the  17th  I  had  rather  a  slack  afternoon, 
so  we  got  Dr.  Stoney  to  show  us  over  the 
forts  (to  which  he  was  doctor)  up  at  the 
waterworks   reservoir.      When    we   went    out, 


XTbe  Bombardment  Begins  53 

the  shells  were  dropping  at  the  reservoir,  so 
we  got  on  to  the  veldt  to  one  side  of  it,  and 
looked  on  a  long  way  off  at  a  brush  which 
was  going  on  in  another  direction.  Our  men 
were  out  and  trying  to  draw  the  Boers  ;  but 
they,  as  usual,  did  not  see  it.  Our  seven- 
pounders  were  on  a  debris  heap,  and  were 
firing  over  the  heads  of  our  men  at  the  Boers, 
who  were  far  away  hidden  in  a  watercourse. 

The  rifle  firing  was  tremendous — almost 
entirely  from  the  Boers,  as  we  learnt  later — 
and  it  sounded  as  if  about  ten  waggon-loads 
of  wounded  would  be  the  result,  but  it  wasn't. 
Only  one  of  our  men  was  hit  in  the  calf  of 
the  leg — not  a  serious  wound.  Whether  any 
Dutch  were  potted,  we  did  not  know — in  fact, 
that  was  a  thing  we  never  did  know.  The 
Dutch  paper  I  spoke  of  just  now  gave 
full  accounts  of  several  of  these  skirmishes, 
and  generally  said  :  '*  Our  loss  was  one  man 
slightly  wounded,  but  the  English  suffered 
tremendously."  Then  in  an  out-of-the-way 
corner  you  saw :  "  Franz  de  Beer,  who  was 
killed  in  the  fight  at  Kimberley  on  such  a 
date,  was  the  son  of  so-and-so."  This  occurred 
more  than  once  in  the  same   paper.      Certainly 


54  McsiCQc^  b\?  tbe  Boers 

the  Boers  were  smart  in  getting  away  their 
killed  and  wounded,  but  of  course  they  were 
in  their  own  lines,  as  they  did  not  advance 
to  meet  us  as  a  rule,  but  let  us  go  to  them, 
which  is  part  of  the  usual  Boer  tactics,  and 
they  don't  ask  for  anything  better.  They 
say,  too,  that  the  Boers  remove  their  dead  so 
rapidly  by  the  primitive  and  crude  method 
of  putting  a  rope  round  them  and  yanking 
them  off  at  a  gallop  behind  a  horse. 

After  watching  the  fight  I  have  been  speaking 
of,  we  went  on  to  the  reservoir,  as  the  firing 
had  ceased.  We  saw  the  guns  and  shells, 
and  the  officer  in  charge  explained  them  to 
us.  There  has  been  more  firing  at  the 
reservoir  than  at  any  other  place,  either  because 
the  Boers  want  to  pot  our  guns  and  disable 
them  or  to  burst  the  reservoir  bank  and  let 
out  the  water.  Lots  of  shells  have  plumped 
harmlessly  into  the  water  and  some  struck 
the  bank,  but  nobody  was  hurt.  The  guns 
are  intact,  and  the  reservoir  is  as  it  was. 

We  don't  think  much  of  the  Boers  as 
artillerymen,  I  think  I  told  you  that  my 
driver  wanted  me  to  buy  a  house  for  him 
some   while  back.      The  house  he  fancied — and 


XTbe  Bombardment  Begins  55 

which  I  should  have  bought,  but  for  a  dis- 
agreement as  to  price — is  a  little  way  from  the 
reservoir  and  in  the  direct  line  of  fire  of  the 
Boer  guns.  No  less  than  three  shells  went 
through  that  house,  and  several  others  fell 
near  it.  Daniel  is  now  rather  pleased  that 
I  did  not  buy  that  house.  I  have  the  entire 
top,  with  fuse  complete,  of  one  of  the  shells 
that  fell  near  it,  and  a  similar  one  split  in 
halves  that  fell  in  Kenilworth.  I  am  going 
to  have  them  fixed  up  as  paper-weights  when 
we  get  out  of  this. 


CHAPTER    IV 

"WITH    C.    J.    RHODES'S    COMPLIMENTS" 

ABOUT  this  time  the  De  Beers  Company- 
began  to  turn  its  attention  to  the  making 
of  shells.  We  had  a  very  good  supply,  but 
not  knowing  how  long  we  were  going  to  be 
shut  up,  the  Company  thought  they  might  as 
well  be  making  some,  so  they  turned  to  and 
started,  and  very  well  they  succeeded.  Their 
shells,  though  perhaps  not  so  nicely  finished 
as  those  turned  out  at  Woolwich,  gave  every 
satisfaction  to  our  artillery  officers,  and  we 
trust  to  the  Dutch  too  ;  and  they  had  the  ad- 
ditional advantage  of  having  "  With  C.  J.  R.'s 
Comps."  stamped  upon  them,  which  must  have 
mightily  amused  any  gentle  Boer  who  got  hit 
by  one.  The  Company  turned  out  about  sixty 
a  day,  so  we  had  no  fear  that  shells  would 
run  short. 

Ever  since   we  were  shut  in,   we   have  been 
56 


^'Mitb  C  5.  IRbotJCS'B  Compliments"   57 

hearing  all  sorts  of  rumours  as  to  the  date 
when  our  relief  column  would  arrive  ;  even 
after  three  days  we  had  "  reliable "  news 
that  it  was  at  Modder  River,  and  as  time 
went  on  these  got  more  and  more  inaccurate. 
Every  one  you  came  across  had  definite  infor- 
mation as  to  the  date  when  it  would  arrive, 
and  every  one's  date  was  different.  At  last 
we  came  to  the  conclusion  that  we  would 
expect  it  when  we  saw  it. 

Things  went  jogging  along  quietly  without 
much  happening.  Most  days  there  was  a  little 
shooting  between  our  patrols  and  the  Boers, 
generally  without  any  damage  being  done,  and 
most  days  a  few  shells  were  fired  either  at  the 
people  guarding  our  cattle  or  at  Wesselton 
or  somewhere  else.  Shells  we  had  got  used 
to,  and  did  not  much  mind,  but  on  some 
days  when  the  wind  was  in  the  right  quarter 
the  report  of  the  gun  and  "  whiz "  of  the 
shell  sounded  very  close. 

Our  bedroom  faced  the  quarter  from  which 
most  of  the  shells  came,  and  sometimes  when 
the  guns  woke  me  up  and  sounded  very  close 
I  used  to  think  they  were  too  near  to  be 
pleasant.      Downstairs   in    the    hall,   even    if   a 


58  BeBieoc^  bv>  tbe  Boers 

shell  had  come  into  the  house,  I  hardly  think 
it  would  have  touched  us,  as  it  would  have 
had  to  come  through  two  good  brick  walls, 
and  I  don't  think  they  could  do  that  at  the 
range  they  were  firing  at. 

On  the  24th  Agnes  and  I  had  quite  a  nice 
little  excitement.  I  heard  from  Mackenzie 
that  the  men  in  one  or  two  of  the  forts  were 
rather  short  of  tobacco.  Many  of  the  better- 
known  forts  were  loaded  up  with  all  sorts  of 
presents  from  the  townspeople,  but  the  more 
out-of-the-way  ones  did  not  come  off  so  well. 
1  laid  in  twenty  pounds  of  Transvaal  tobacco 
and  two  hundred  cigars,  and  went  round  to 
the  neglected  forts.  At  one  of  them  that 
looked  north  we  had  quite  a  bit  of  fun.  The 
men  were  very  polite  and  showed  us  every- 
thing— a  Maxim  gun,  amongst  others,  and  the 
man  in  charge  showed  us  the  way  it  worked. 
We  had  some  field-glasses  with  us,  and  could 
see  the  Boers  moving  around  the  veldt  about 
a  mile  and  three-quarters  away,  between  their 
head  camp  and  the  railway. 

Presently  the  armoured  train  went  out,  and 
the  Boers  fired  a  gun  at  it.  The  gun  was  about 
the  same  distance  from  us  as  from  the  railway, 


''mith  C.  3.  IRbobes's  Compliments"   59 

and  they  fired  across  us,  so  we  could  see  the 
shots  well.  They  fired  six  shots  at  the  train, 
but  only  one  went  near  it,  and  then  they 
fired  a  last  shot,  and  this  time  they  had 
slewed  the  gun  round  and  fired  at  our  fort. 
Of  course  it  was  too  far  ofF  for  us  to  see  how 
the  gun  pointed,  but  we  saw  the  flash  and 
puff"  of  smoke,  and  heard  the  "  whiz  "  of  the 
shell,  evidently  coming  our  way.  We  did 
not  have  much  time  to  think,  but  the  men 
all  yelled  to  us  to  crouch  down  behind  the 
rampart,  and  the  shell  struck  and  burst  about  a 
hundred  yards  away,  of  course  quite  harmlessly. 
Then  a  message  came  from  the  conning  tower 
that  every  one  was  to  leave  the  fort  except 
those  actually  on  duty,  so  we  had  to  go. 

Later  on  in  the  afternoon  I  went  up  to 
the  top  of  the  conning  tower  and  had  a  look 
round.  There  is  a  splendid  view  all  over 
from  there,  but  I  only  had  a  few  minutes 
to  spare,  and  you  want  to  be  up  there  hours 
to  take  in  all  the  country  round,  things  look 
so  different  from  the  top  side.  When  the 
trouble  is  over  I  will  go  up  and  spend  an 
afternoon  there  with  a  glass,  and  take  in 
everything   quietly. 


6o  Besieoe^  bv  tbe  IBocvb 

On  the  next  morning  (November  25th) 
we  were  waked  about  five  o'clock  by  heavy 
gun  finng,  and  soon  after  heavy  rifle  firing 
began,  so  I  knew  there  would  soon  be  some 
wounded  about.  I  got  up  and  went  down 
to  the  hospital  about  six,  and  Watkins  turned 
up  soon  after.  We  waited  about  a  little,  and 
then,  as  there  was  no  news  of  any  wounded, 
were  just  going  off  to  a  bit  of  high  ground 
near  the  hospital  to  see  if  we  could  discover 
what  was  going  on. 

Just  then  a  telephone  message  came  to  say 
that  we  were  to  go  out  where  the  fighting 
was  going  on,  as  more  doctors  were  wanted. 
It  did  not  seem  the  right  order,  as  we  knew 
that  there  would  be  wounded  coming  in 
presently,  and  our  allotted  post  was  at  the 
hospital  ;  however,  it  was  an  order,  so  off  we 
went.  Watkins  had  a  "  bike,"  but  mine  was 
busted,  and  I  was  walking.  I  walked  along 
home  without  meeting  a  cab,  and  then  I  got 
hold  of  a  milkcart,  which  took  me  about  a 
quarter  of  a  mile,  and  then  I  found  a  cab.  I 
went  out  as  hard  as  I  could  go,  and  followed 
an  ambulance  that  I  could  see  in  front  of 
me.      We    got   a  little  way  beyond  the   barrier 


"mitb  C.  ^.  IRbo^es'5  Compliments"   6i 

when  I  met  some  of  our  men  coming  in  with 
about  a  score  of  Dutch  prisoners,  and  a 
dirty,  low-class-looking  lot  they  were. 

A  little  farther  on  I  met  some  more  of 
them,  and  the  men  who  were  bringing  them 
in  told  me  the  Boers  would  pot  me  if  I  went 
farther  out.  However,  the  ambulance  was 
still  ahead,  so  on  I  went  after  it.  The  rifle 
firing  had  been  getting  a  good  deal  slacker, 
and  by  the  time  I  caught  the  ambulance  it 
had  practically  stopped.  Three  or  four  ambu- 
lances were  just  starting  for  the  hospital,  and 
every  one  seemed  to  have  been  attended  to, 
but  they  brought  a  Boer  along  with  a  big 
hole  in  his  head,  and  I  bandaged  him  up  and 
sent  him  along  in  one  of  them.  The  ambu- 
lances were  on  the  road  just  under  the  crest 
of  a  hill,  and  a  good  lot  of  our  men  were 
scattered  on  both  sides  of  the  road,  also  under 
the  brow  of  the  hill.  Dr.  Watkins  was  some- 
where about.  I  saw  his  bicycle  on  the  road- 
side, but  could  not  see  him. 

After  waiting  for  a  little  time,  an  order 
came  from  the  colonel  that  our  ambulance 
was  to  move  off  to  the  left,  keeping  under 
cover  of  the   hill,  so  we  went    along  over  the 


62  Besieaeb  b^  tbe  Boers 

veldt  for  a  few  hundred  yards,  and  then  pretty 
smart  rifle  firing  began  again  at  the  men  near 
whom  we  were.  Then  we  got  an  order  to 
draw  off  home  with  the  ambulance,  as  our 
men  were  going  to  retire.  This  being  the 
case,  I  did  not  see  that  I  was  doing  any  good 
there,  and  I  knew  that  a  lot  of  wounded  had 
gone  along  to  the  hospital,  and  there  was 
only  the  junior  house-surgeon  there  to  receive 
them,  Russell  having  gone  out  with  the  Army 
doctor  to  see  the  fiin.  So  I  decided  to  get 
back  to  the  hospital  as  soon  as  I  could. 

I  took  a  beeline  across  the  open  to  my  cab, 
and,  as  the  firing  was  fairly  hot,  was  a  little 
exposed  to  it.  Five  or  six  bullets  whistled 
over  me,  probably  not  aimed  at  me  at  all,  but 
I  have  no  doubt  they  would  have  laid  me  out 
quite  as  neatly,  if  they  had  hit  me  in  the  right 
spot,  as  if  they  had  been  meant  for  me. 

The  small-bore  bullet  makes  a  tiny  little 
"  whiz,"  more  like  a  big  mosquito  than  any- 
thing else,  and  does  not  sound  as  if  it  could 
possibly  hurt. 

I  got  back  to  the  cab  all  right,  and  went 
straight  along  to  the  hospital,  and  found,  as  I 
had   expected,  heaps  of  wounded,  and  no   one 


'"Omitb  C.  5.  IRbo^es's  Compliments"   63 

to  look  after  them.  I  waded  right  into  them, 
and  Watkins  and  some  more  of  the  doctors 
soon  turned  up,  so  we  got  them  shipshape 
before  long.  I  got  some  badly  wounded  this 
time.  One  poor  youngster  of  eighteen  was 
shot  in  the  abdomen,  and  his  bowel  was  cut 
open  about  ten  times.  I  had  to  cut  one  piece 
about  ten  inches  long  clean  out,  and  to  stitch 
up  a  lot  of  other  places  ;  but  I  felt  that  he 
had  no  chance,  and  sent  for  his  people  and  told 
them  so  at  once.  He  died  about  six  hours 
after.  His  father  and  mother  had  cleared 
out  when  the  war  scare  began,  but  he  would 
not  go  ;  he  stayed  and  joined  the  Light  Horse. 
Another  man  fell  to  me  with  a  badly  broken 
arm,  the  bone  being  very  much  shattered ;  and 
another  with  a  bullet  clean  through  his  liver. 
Another  had  a  bullet  in  his  thigh,  which  I 
cut  out  and  have  stuck  to,  together  with  a 
big  bullet  I  picked  up  on  the  veldt.  Our 
loss  was  six  killed  and  twenty-nine  wounded, 
but  we  believe  that  the  Boers  lost  very  heavily, 
and  we  took  thirty-five  prisoners. 

I  forgot  to  say  that  two  severely  wounded 
Boers  fell  to  me  at  the  hospital.  Both  of 
them    were     rather     badly    hit,     but     they    did 


64  Beslcoet)  b^  tbe  Boers 

well,  and  were  not  long  about  it.  As  soon 
as  they  were  able  to  get  up,  I  had  them 
transferred  to  the  gaol  hospital,  as  they  could 
easily  escape  from  the  big  hospital.  The  man 
whose  head  I  bandaged  up  on  the  field  was 
badly  damaged — in  fact,  Shields  said  that  when 
he  took  off  my  bandage,  about  a  third  of  the 
man's  brains  fell  out,  and  this  is  very  nearly  the 
absolute  truth.  Anyhow,  he  lived  three  days, 
and  would  probably  have  lived  altogether,  but 
they  washed  him,  and,  being  a  Boer,  the  shock 
to  his  system  was  so  great  that  he  succumbed. 

The  history  of  the  day's  fight  was  that  our 
men  drove  the  Boers  out  of  the  ridge  from 
which  they  had  been  shelling  the  town  with 
heavy  loss,  but  as  strong  reinforcements  of 
Boers  came  up,  they  very  wisely  retired,  and 
did  not  attempt  to  hold  the  position. 

Watkins  got  out  a  few  minutes  before  I 
did,  and  was  right  up  in  the  firing  line  whilst 
the  fire  was  still  very  hot,  but  he  came  out 
all  right.  Some  well-known  men  were  hit  in 
this  fight.  One  poor  chap  (he  is  one  of  the 
three  men  who  rent  my  old  house)  got  the 
middle  part  of  his  lower  jaw  smashed  into 
splinters.     It  is  a  horrid  wound,  not  dangerous 


"Mitb  C.  5»  IRbo^es's  Compliments"   65 

to  life,  but  I  am  afraid  the  deformity  that  is 
left  will  be  very  bad. 

Most  of  the  Boer  prisoners  were  of  the 
very  lowest  class,  and  came  from  Bloemhof, 
a  little  Transvaal  town  not  far  from  Christiana, 
where  I  have  been  several  times.  Two  at 
least  ot  them  came  from  Barkly  West,  where 
they  had  been  working  in  some  relief  work 
that  the  Government  had  started  for  the  benefit 
of  poor  whites.  But  this  is  Boer  gratitude. 
Some  of  these  prisoners  had  Free  State  news- 
papers on  them,  which  gave  us  later  news  than 
any  we  had  been  able  to  get. 

These  papers  gave  a  letter  from  the  com- 
mandant who  was  bombarding  Kimberley,  in 
which  he  said  he  had  directed  his  shells 
to  the  middle  of  the  town  to  "  do  as  much 
damage  as  possible."  This,  like  firing  on 
ambulances,  is  directly  against  the  Geneva 
Convention,  which  lays  down  that  bombard- 
ment should,  as  far  as  possible,  be  directed 
against  fortifications,  and  not  against  private 
buildings.  But  the  Boer  cares  for  none  or 
these  things  ;  he  is  just  an  ignorant  savage, 
and  knows  and  cares  nothing  for  conventions. 

On   the  whole  this  was   a  good  day's  work, 

5 


66  jBesieae^  b^  tbe  JBoers 

though  we  lost  rather  heavily  ;  but  it  showed 
that  the  Boers  were  not  always  invincible,  even 
behind  their  earthworks. 

The  next  day  a  doctor  came  in  from  the 
Boers  for  chloroform  and  brandy.  He  was 
a  Scotchman,  and  said  he  had  been  compelled 
to  go  with  the  Boers — which  is  a  little  thin, 
as  he  could  have  stayed  in  Kimberley  if  he 
had  wanted  to  when  he  was  here.  He  got  his 
chloroform  and  brandy  all  right. 

On  the  28th  we  had  another  fight.  When 
I  came  in  to  lunch  I  found  a  note  from  the 
captain  of  the  Ambulance  Corps  asking  me 
to  be  ready  to  go  out  with  the  ambulance 
at  3.30  p.m.,  as  our  men  were  going  out 
in  force.  I  wrote  a  note  to  say  all  right, 
but  ran  across  the  man  who  he  said  had 
told  him  to  write  to  me.  In  the  course  of 
conversation  I  said  that  I  should  be  there 
to  time,  and  he  asked  me  what  I  meant. 
When  I  explained,  he  was  surprised,  and  said 
I  must  stay  at  the  hospital  and  not  go  out, 
as  he  had  got  a  wigging  for  sending  Dr. 
Watkins  and  me  away  from  our  posts  a 
few  days  before.  I  was  a  bit  disappointed, 
but  of  course  had  to  obey  orders  ;  and,  as  it 


"Mitb  G.  5-  IRbo^es's  Compliments"   67 

turned  out,  I  did  not  miss  much.  All  the 
afternoon  there  was  lots  of  firing,  both  rifle 
and  artillery,  but  no  wounded  turned  up. 
About  half-past  seven  we  got  news  that  the 
wounded  were  coming  in,  so  I  went  down  to 
the  hospital. 

Dr.  Mackenzie  had  been  somewhere  watching 
the  fight,  and  came  in  with  glowing  accounts 
of  the  way  in  which  our  men  had  hammered 
the  Boers,  stormed  their  fort,  taken  their  big 
gun,  and  generally  done  great  things.  This 
was  very  nice,  but  when  the  wounded  turned 
up  we  began  to  hear  another  tale.  The  first 
few  said  that  we  had  lost  heavily,  but  knew  no 
details  ;  and  then  others  came  who  told  us  that 
Colonel  Scott  Turner,  who  commanded  all  the 
mounted  men,  was  killed,  and  lots  of  others, 
and  that  we  had  not  taken  the  gun,  or  fort, 
or  anything  else. 

The  wounded  kept  straggling  in  by  ones  and 
twos,  and  now  and  then  an  ambulance  brought 
more,  and  so  it  went  on  until  about  2.30  a.m., 
when  the  last  one  was  finished.  Altogether 
about  thirty  wounded  were  treated,  but  I  only 
got  about  six  of  them,  for,  after  doing  a  few, 
Watkins  got  a  man  who  was  shot  through  the 


68  :Besieoeb  b^  tbc  Boers 

bowels,  and  he  asked  me  to  help  fix  him  up. 
It  was  a  worse  mess  than  I  had  had  with 
my  own  man  a  few  days  previously,  and  took 
nearly  two  hours  to  fix  up.  The  poor  chap 
only  lived  about  twelve  hours  after. 

We  got  home  to  bed  about  three,  and  were 
uncommonly  glad  to  get  there.  Next  day  was 
a  very  sad  one,  for  by  this  time  we  knew  that 
we  had  lost  a  lot  of  men,  but  how  many  we 
did  not  know  till  the  Boers  sent  in  to  say  they 
had  nineteen  of  our  dead,  and  we  could  fetch 
them ;  and  so  we  did.  The  total  loss  was 
twenty-two  killed  at  the  time,  and  two  died 
after  in  hospital.  The  nineteen  were  so  smashed 
up  that  there  was  some  ground  for  the  rumours 
that  after  our  men  had  retired  the  Boers  had 
gone  round  and  finished  off  any  wounded  who 
were  still  alive.  They  had  all  been  very  near 
the  Boer  fort,  so  that  might  account  for  the 
severity  of  their  wounds,  but  nobody  knows 
except  the  Boers. 

The  colonel  was  shot  dead,  quite  close  to 
the  fort,  leading  on  his  men.  He  was  a  very 
brave  man,  but  rash,  and  though  the  towns- 
people were  a  good  deal  upset  at  his  death, 
there   was   a   curious   undercurrent   in   his  own 


**Mitb  C  5.  lRbot)es'5  Compliments"   69 

men's  sorrow.  They  all  felt  that  he  was 
reckless,  and  likely  at  any  time  to  endanger  all 
their  lives.  Of  course  they  all  knew  that  any 
of  their  sorties  were  very  risky,  but  Turner 
always  seemed  to  go  in  for  unnecessary  risks, 
and  the  men  naturally  did  not  like  it. 

All  the  dead  were  buried  on  the  Wednesday 
afternoon  (November  29th),  and  the  whole  town 
was  gloomy.  It  is  said  that  Scott  Turner's 
orders  were  to  attack  the  Boer  position  and 
do  what  he  could,  but  not  to  press  the  attack 
on  the  fort,  as  that  would  be  too  costly  ;  but 
Turner  could  not  hold  himself,  and  went  for 
the  fort. 

In  one  of  the  Boer  positions  which  our 
men  took  they  captured  one  hundred  and 
fifty  shells  of  a  very  deadly  kind,  seven  barrels 
of  gunpowder,  and  a  few  other  things  ;  but 
the  price  we  paid  for  them  was  far  too  heavy. 
On  that  same  Wednesday  night  we  got  signals 
from  the  relief  column  that  they  were  coming 
along. 

From  this  time  things  were  pretty  quiet, 
and  there  was  no  further  firing  into  the  town. 
Most  of  the  Boers  were  supposed  to  have 
gone    down    to    meet    the    column,     but    they 


70  Besieged  bv  tbe  Boers 

left  enough  to  prevent  our  men  doing  much  ; 
though  no  actual  fighting  took  place  until 
December  9th,  when  our  men  went  out  to  the 
Homestead  and  had  an  artillery  fight  with 
the  Boers  at  Kamfersdam.  There  was  a  lot  of 
firing,  but  not  much  damage  was  done  ;  one 
of  our  men  only  was  killed  and  two  wounded, 
all  of  these  by  the  bullets  from  shrapnel 
shell,  which  are  just  like  those  I  used  to  make 
with  a  mould  at  home. 


CHAPTER    V 

MILITARY    ECCENTRICITIES 

ABOUT  this  time  the  military  began  to 
worry  us  with  proclamations.  First  we 
all  had  to  report  how  many  horses  we  had, 
and  a  ftw  days  later  there  was  a  notice  that 
horse-owners  might  use  the  horse-feed  they 
had,  but  when  that  was  done  none  would 
be  issued  except  for  horses  used  for  military 
operations.  Fortunately  my  stablemen  had  a 
fair  supply.  Then  there  was  a  trouble  about 
condensed  milk.  None  was  allowed  to  be 
sold  except  on  a  doctor's  order,  and  then  only 
for  infants  and  sick  people,  and  one  wrote 
more  orders  for  milk  than  for  prescriptions 
about  this  time. 

We  had  been  for  some  time  on  an  allow- 
ance of  meat.  At  first  it  was  not  very 
strictly  adhered  to,  but  now  it  began  to  be 
doled  out  in  the  regulation  quantity.     We  were 

71 


72  JBesiegeD  bxj  tbe  Boers 

very  lucky,  for  our  butcher  used  to  send 
us  ours  the  same  as  usual  ;  but  he  was  the 
only  butcher  allowed  to  have  meat  by  the 
military,  and  most  people  had  to  go  and  wait 
their  turn  and  scramble  for  the  meat.  As 
most  of  the  men  in  town  were  in  the  Town 
Guard,  in  many  cases  the  women  had  to  go 
and  try  to  get  the  meat  allowance  for  them- 
selves, and  were  often  shoved  out  of  the  way 
and  did  not  get  any.  There  was  a  great 
deal  of  growling  about  the  meat  supply,  and 
as  there  were  lots  of  cattle,  it  seemed  as  if  a 
better  allowance  could  be  made  and  a  better 
system  of  distributing  it  arranged.  Of  course 
I  suppose  the  military  officers  did  their  best 
to  arrange  these  things,  and  as  there  were 
not  many  of  them,  they  had  their  hands  very 
full. 

As  time  went  on,  however,  a  lot  of  dis- 
satisfaction arose  in  the  town  as  to  the  way 
the  officers  went  on  their  way  rejoicing  and 
issuing  orders  that  were  very  nice  from  their 
point  of  view,  but  did  not  seem  at  all  cal- 
culated to  promote  the  welfare  of  the  towns- 
people. And  a  military  officer  is  like  a  mule 
— he  is  so  puffed  up  with  his  own  importance 


/IDilitarg  lEccentricities  73 

that  he  never  listens  to  any  other  view  of  a 
matter  except  his  own.  Personally  our  officers 
were  very  nice  people,  but  as  a  body  I  have 
no  doubt  their  creed  was  that  Kimberley  was 
made  for  the  especial  benefit  of  their  regiment. 

Well,  after  this  I  must  get  back  to  the 
recording  of  events  ;  but  really,  except  for 
rumours  about  the  upcoming  column,  nothing 
happened  until  December  9th.  On  that  day 
our  artillery  went  out  to  the  Homestead 
and  tried  to  shell  the  Boers  out  of  a  strong 
position  they  had  taken  up  in  one  of  the 
outside  mines,  Kamfersdam  ;  but  though  they 
blazed  away  merrily  at  each  other  for  a  long 
time,  not  such  a  great  deal  of  damage  was 
done.  One  of  our  men  was  killed  and  three 
were  slightly  wounded.  The  Boer  loss  was 
two  killed  and  a  few  wounded,  but  we  don't 
know  how  many,  and  we  did  not  drive  them 
from  their  position. 

On  Sunday  (the  loth)  a  little  distant  firing 
was  heard  late  in  the  afternoon,  and  it  was 
reported  that  a  few  shells  had  been  seen 
bursting  on  the  Spytfontein  hills,  where  the 
Boers  were  massed  in  strong  force,  the  shells 
having  evidently  been  fired  by  the  relief  column. 


74  Besieget)  b^  tbe  JBoers 

On  the  next  morning  heavy  cannon  firing 
began  before  five  and  kept  on  till  after  nine. 
It  was  tremendous,  and  was  just  like  volley 
firing  with  cannon.  A  dozen  reports  would 
come  in  quick  succession,  the  whole  of  them 
perhaps  in  less  than  a  minute,  and  for  about 
four  hours  this  sort  of  thing  was  almost 
incessant.  Some  of  the  shells  could  be  seen 
bursting  in  the  same  kopjes  as  on  the  previous 
night,  but  whether  the  bulk  of  the  noise  was 
from  our  guns  or  the  Boers'  we  did  not  know. 
Of  course,  after  all  this  we  were  confident  that 
our  column  would  come  in  in  the  afternoon, 
but  somehow  or  other  it  did  not  ;  and  though 
I  am  now  writing  on  December  i6th,  and  all 
this  took  place  five  days  ago  within  twenty 
miles  of  here,  you  know  far  more  of  what 
happened  than  I  do.  As  our  column  has  not 
arrived,  we  imagine  that  the  Dutch  position 
was  too  strong  for  our  men  to  force,  but 
whether  this  is  really  so  is  not  known. 

We  are  all  mighty  sick  at  the  lack  of  news. 
Whether  the  officers  have  any  or  not  we  do 
not  know,  but  they  are  very  careful  that  the 
civilians  know  nothing.  Sixteen  days  after 
the  fight  at  Modder  River  we  were  allowed  to 


/IDiUtarg  JSccentdcities  75 

have  extracts  from  the  despatches  pubHshed, 
and  that  Is  about  the  time  any  news  is  allowed 
to  mellow  before  we  are  presented  with  it. 
We  don't  want  to  know  what  are  the  plans 
of  the  general,  but  we  can't  help  wanting 
to  know  something  of  the  things  that  have 
happened.  I  suppose  the  Army  red  tape  forbids 
anything  being  told  civilians  until  it  is  too 
old  to  interest  them.  And  the  folly  of  that 
red  tape  !     Oh,  Lord,  how  silly  it  is  ! 

The  military  orders  on  one  occasion  towards 
the  end  of  November  contained  the  interesting 
information  that  on  October  6th  a  company 
of  the  Town  Guard  went  out  to  the  rifle  butts 
to  practise,  and  returned  after  they  had  finished. 
Another  day  the  tit-bit  was  that  mule  No. 
so-and-so,  belonging  to  the  Royal  Artillery, 
had  died,  and  was  accordingly  struck  off  the 
strength  of  the  regiment  from  the  date  of  its 
death.  Then,  again,  a  few  nights  ago,  when 
the  searchlights  were  signalling,  an  important 
message  was  sent  through,  and  all  concerned 
strained  their  eyes  to  get  hold  of  it  rightly. 
When  got  it  was:  "What  is  the  number 
branded  on  the  hoof  of  the  horse  issued 
to    O ?"     O is    the   military  doctor, 


76  3BesieGe&  by  tbe  3Boers 

and  he  has  not  heard  the  last  ot  that  horse 
yet. 

After  the  heavy  cannonading  on  the  nth, 
everything  was  deadly  dull  ror  a  time.  A 
few  distant  guns  were  heard  on  the  12th, 
and  now  and  then  the  Boers  dropped  a  few 
shells  into  Wesselton,  but  beyond  this  there 
was  no  news,  and  nothing  doing  outside. 
Inside  there  was  great  excitement,  for  some- 
how a  rumour  got  around  that  a  proclamation 
would  be  issued  to  the  effect  that  all  women 
and  children,  and  all  men  not  actually  bearing 
arms  or  in  some  other  way  indispensable  to 
the  defence  of  the  town,  would  be  compelled 
to  leave  Kimberley  as  soon  as  the  railway  was 
opened.  A  notice  was  printed  that  free  passes 
on  the  railway  would  be  given  to  people  not 
able  to  pay  the  fare  to  wherever  they  wished 
to  go,  and  this  gave  some  colour  to  the 
compulsory  story. 

Anyhow,  though  there  was  no  official  notifi- 
cation that  any  such  scheme  was  contemplated, 
it  was  known  that  such  a  plan  had  been  debated 
by  the  Town  Council  and  the  military,  and 
later  on  that  the  colonel  had  received  positive 
orders  from  headquarters  to  carry  it  out.     The 


/IIMlitar^  Bccentticittes  77 

reason  was  that  as  the  railway  from  here  to 
Orange  River  (eighty  miles)  ran  through  what 
was  practically  enemy's  country,  it  would  need 
to  be  guarded  all  the  time,  or  the  Boers 
would  rip  it  up  again.  Then  to  efficiently 
guard  that  length  of  line  would  need  an 
enormous  number  of  men,  for  unless  almost 
every  yard  was  looked  after  carefully,  a  single 
Boer  could  sneak  in  and  take  out  a  rail  or 
two  and  so  disgruntle  the  line  again.  As  this 
enormous  number  of  men  could  not  be  spared 
for  long,  the  authorities  saw  there  was  a  choice 
ot  two  things — either  to  bring  up  food  to 
Kimberley  or  take  Kimberley  to  the  food, 
and  then  let  the  line  look  after  itself. 

Naturally,  being  officials,  the  wrong  thing 
seemed  right  to  them,  and  they  seem  to  have 
decided  to  take  Kimberley  to  the  food.  This 
was  very  nice  in  theory,  but  when  you  con- 
sider that  all  the  colonial  towns — Cape  Town 
as  well  as  others — were  already  overcrowded 
with  refugees  from  up-country,  the  hotels  and 
boarding-houses  being  full  up,  it  seemed  to 
our  people  that  in  leaving  Kimberley  they 
would  just  be  going  from  the  frying-pan  into 
the    fire.     Then,   again,   heaps    of   people  who 


78  IBceiCQc^  b^  the  Bocvs 

were  struggling  along  here,  and  only  just  able 
to  make  ends  meet,  would  be  hopelessly  ruined 
by  leaving. 

The  railway  notice  said  that  no  excess 
luggage  would  be  taken,  and  this  meant  prac- 
tically that  the  people  would  have  to  go  with 
what  they  stood  in.  Oh,  it  was  a  foolish 
notion,  and  the  very  mention  of  compulsion 
got  the  people's  backs  up.  Had  there  been 
any  attempt  to  carry  out  the  compulsory 
exodus,  I  firmly  believe  there  would  have  been 
civil  war  in  the  town,  and  that  would  either 
have  resulted  in  surrendering  it  to  the  Boers 
or  in  telling  the  military  to  get  out  and 
leave  us  to  look  after  ourselves.  One  man 
told  the  colonel  in  almost  so  many  words  that 
if  our  own  countrymen  were  going  to  turn  us 
out  of  the  homes  we  had  earned  and  worked 
for,  surrender  to  the  Dutch  could  not  possibly 
bring  anything  worse  upon  us.  Anyhow,  feel- 
ing ran  very  high,  and  the  whole  town  was 
badly  upset. 

To  do  our  colonel  justice,  I  believe  he  saw 
the  absurdity  of  the  proposal  at  once,  but  he 
had  his  orders  and  could  not  absolutely  go 
against  them,  though  he  did  not  actually  hurry 


/nMUtar^  jEccentricfttes  79 

to  carry  them  out.  Had  he  been  able  to 
publish  a  proclamation  when  the  scare  began, 
to  the  effect  that  hard  times  were  coming  and 
that  it  was  advisable  for  all  people  who  were 
able  to  do  so  to  leave  the  town,  and  that  every 
possible  assistance  and  facility  would  be  given 
them  to  do  so,  but  that  no  one  who  did  not 
wish  to  leave  would  be  compelled  to  go,  none 
of  this  feeling  would  have  arisen. 

I  suppose  that  this  would  have  been  too 
directly  flying  in  the  face  of  the  orders  of  his 
superiors,  and  so  could  not  be  done.  Anyhow, 
a  very  strong  protest  was  sent  off  by  Rhodes 
and  other  important  people,  showing  the  folly 
of  compelling  the  people  to  leave,  and  for  the 
present  the  matter  stands  over  till  our  relief 
column  arrives. 

It  is  pretty  generally  thought  that  the  wire 
which  Rhodes  and  some  other  prominent  men 
sent  off  some  weeks  ago,  urging  that  immediate 
relief  must  be  sent  to  us,  caused  the  issue  of 
the  compulsory  departure  order,  the  authorities 
at  the  Cape  or  at  home  thinking  the  matter 
to  be  more  pressing  than  it  really  was. 

At  present,  however  much  any  one  wants 
to  get  away,  there  is  no  communication,  so  it 


8o  Besieaet)  b^  tbe  Boers 

can't  be  done.  All  the  week  (December  nth 
to  17th),  we  have  been  longing  to  hear 
some  news  of  the  column's  advancing,  but 
not  a  syllable  of  news  have  we  heard. 
Rumours  are  around  in  plenty,  the  favourite 
one  being  that  as  the  Boers  hold  a  very  strong 
position  in  the  Spytfontein  kopjes,  through 
which  the  railway  comes,  and  our  men  failed 
to  shell  them  out,  it  is  said  that  the  next 
move  is  to  try  and  surround  them  in  the 
kopjes,  and  cut  off  their  food  and  water 
supply,  at  the  same  time  bringing  the  railway 
round  the  kopjes,  either  on  one  side  or  the 
other,  in  spite  of  the  Boers.  It  sounds  all 
right,  and  the  country  to  the  east  of  the 
kopjes  is  pretty  flat  for  a  railway,  and  has  no 
very  steep  gradients  ;  but  it  is  rather  a  big 
order,  and  would  apparently  take  a  long  time. 
To-day  (December  i8th)  we  had  news  in 
the  paper  of  the  big  fight  on  the  nth  at 
Spytfontein,  and  our  guesses  were  not  far  out. 
There  was  a  heavy  engagement  there,  and 
we  lost  severely,  as  any  attacking  force  must 
always  do  when  advancing  in  the  open  against 
a  strongly  entrenched  enemy.  The  column 
did    not    succeed    in    turning    out     the    Boers, 


/nMlitary  Bccentrictttes  si 

but  inflicted  a  heavy  loss  upon  them,  possibly 
heavier  than  our  own,  but  of  that  we  cannot 
be  sure.  However,  an  irregular  force  feels 
the  loss  of  its  men  far  more  than  a  regular 
one,  especially  a  Boer  force,  for  they  are  as 
a  rule  mighty  frightened  of  getting  hurt. 
We  hope,  therefore,  that  the  Boer  loss  has 
been  great  enough  to  discourage  them  a  little, 
but  this  we  shall  find  out  later. 

Whenever  we  have  had  a  little  time  all 
through  the  siege,  we  have  wondered  how 
Mafeking  was  getting  on.  We  have  had  news 
at  long  intervals,  and  generally  much  to  the 
same  effect — viz.,  that  heavy  bombardment 
is  still  going  on.  It  is  simply  wonderful  how 
that  little  place  has  held  out,  and  we  would 
give  anything  to  help  them  to  hold  out  until 
they  are  relieved.  If  they  are  able  to  do 
so,  I  think  their  defence  will  be  one  of  the 
pluckiest  in  history.  They  have  been  shelled 
almost  the  whole  of  the  siege,  and  our  shelling 
has  been  the  merest  child's  play  to  theirs.  The 
Boers  have  never  used  anything  heavier  than 
a  twelve-pounder  against  us  so  far,  while  at 
Mafeking  they  have  used  forty,  sixty,  and 
even   a  hundred-pounder,  and   yet   those  chaps 

6 


82  BestegeD  by  tbe  :Koers 

hang  on  and  keep  getting  a  few  Boers  here 
and  there  when  they  have  a  chance,  and 
simply  will  not  give  in.  Fortunately  they 
were  well  supplied  with  food  at  the  beginning, 
and  got  most  of  their  women  and  children 
out. 

December  i^th. — All  the  last  week  things 
have  been  quiet.  Our  men  have  been  out 
a  few  times,  and  a  little  shooting  has  been 
done  on  both  sides,  but  we  have  had  no  one 
hit,  and  I  don't  expect  they  have  either.  The 
Boers  are  leaving  us  alone,  and  both  sides  are 
just  waiting.  Our  men  cannot  advance  on 
the  Boers,  as  their  position  in  the  kopjes  at 
Spytfontein  is  too  strong,  and  the  Boers  can- 
not leave  Spytfontein  without  letting  the  relief 
column  get  into  Kimberley,  so  they  are  appar- 
ently just  sitting  looking  at  each  other — at 
any  rate,  as  far  as  we  know.  In  the  mean- 
time the  Boers  are  leaving  us  in  Kimberley 
quite  alone,  and  are  even  dismantling  the  forts 
from  which  they  shelled  us  earlier  on,  probably 
taking  the  sandbags  to  fortify  other  positions 
from  which  to  harass  the  column. 

Our  Kimberley  men  are  quietly  doing  all 
they  can  to  prevent  the  Boers  being  comfortable 


/IDilitar^  Eccentricities  83 

in  these  positions  again  by  filling  up  the 
wells  and  cutting  the  dams  ;  so  that  if  they  do 
come  there  again,  their  water  supply  will  be 
a  difficulty  to  them.  We  hear  now  that 
the  Spytfontein  lot  are  rather  in  difficulties 
for  water,  and  that  is  quite  likely.  We 
hear,  too,  that  typhoid  ana  dysentery  are 
playing  them  up,  which  is  more  than  likely, 
for  the  average  Boer  is  a  filthy  beast,  and  has 
less  idea  of  sanitation  and  cleanliness  than  the 
domestic  barn-door  hog.  We  are  getting  quite 
our  share  of  these  troubles,  in  spite  of  all 
our  care,  and  the  Dutch  must  be  having  a 
warm  time  with  them. 

On  the  2 1  St  we  had  another  sad  mishap. 
A  corporal  in  the  Mounted  Police,  after  going 
round  and  inspecting  his  outlying  pickets,  went 
off  towards  the  Boer  lines  without  saying  any- 
thing to  his  men.  They  did  not  see  him  go, 
and  consequently  when  they  saw  a  man  some 
four  or  five  hundred  yards  away  spying  and 
scouting  about,  they  fired  at  and  killed  him. 
It  was  just  getting  dark,  and  he  had  not  said 
a  word  to  any  one  about  going,  so  no  blame 
could  possibly  be  attached  to  the  men.  It 
was  absolutely  his  own  fault,  but  it  is  very  sad 


84  IBcsicQcb  bp  tbe  Boers 

to  kill  one's  own  men  all  the  same.  There 
is  no  doubt  that  a  man  who  was  shot  earlier 
on  in  the  siege  in  a  mysterious  manner  when 
out  scouting  was  killed  in  the  same  way  by 
his  own  men. 

We  have  not  had  any  cheerful  news  about 
our  forces  down  the  colony  and  in  Natal  this 
week — in  fact,  they  all  seem  to  be  making  a 
mess  of  it.  To  the  non-military  man  who 
knows  something  of  the  country,  all  three 
columns  seem  to  be  running  their  heads 
against  stone  walls  when  they  try  to  turn 
the  Boers  out  of  the  hills  in  Natal,  at 
Stormberg,  and  at  Nauwpoort.  Many  of 
these  hills  are  almost  unscalable,  and  to  try 
and  take  them  in  face  of  a  strong  force 
armed  with  magazine  long-range  rifles  seems 
the  height  of  folly. 

The  plan  that  commends  itself  to  the 
common-sense  civilian  mind  is  to  keep  a  suffi- 
cient force  at  these  hilly  places  to  prevent  the 
Dutch  advancing  into  the  colony,  and  then 
to  send  a  column  into  the  Free  State  through 
the  flat  country  anywhere  between  here  and 
Orange  River.  However,  I  hope  those  in 
charge  of  the  Army  really  do  know  what  they 


/IftUitar^  Eccentricities  85 

are  about,  but  at  present  it  seems  as  if,  when 
they  had  spelt  "  South  Africa,"  they  had  come 
to  the   end  of  their   knowledge. 

We  have  now  been  cut  off  for  ten  weeks, 
and  seem  just  as  near  relief  as  we  were  at 
the  beginning.  Personally  I  have  not  felt  the 
nip  much  yet,  if  at  all,  because  I  have  a  good 
balance  at  the  bank,  and  all  our  tradespeople 
know  that  we  are  good  payers,  so  we  get 
things  often  when  other  folks  don't.  Soon 
after  the  siege  began  we  started  quietly  getting 
in  stores,  and  we  are  pretty  well  supplied,  so 
that  I  think  we  could  last  out  a  month  quite 
comfortably,  and  six  weeks  by  spinning  things 
out,  even  if  we  could  not  buy  a  thing  in  town, 
but  the  bulk  of  the  people  are  nothing  like 
so  well  off.  Many  of  them  got  in  lots  of 
stuff,  but  began  to  use  it  directly  the  siege 
began,  which  is  the  worst  sort  of  foolishness. 
So  far  we  have  not  touched  any  of  our 
reserve,  and  keep  adding  to  it  little  by  little 
as  we  can.  There  is  some  talk  to  the  effect 
that  we  may  be  required  to  hang  on  till  the 
end  of  January,  and  for  all  one  can  see,  that 
is  the  earliest  date  we  shall  get  free,  so  once 
again  I  will  remark,  Damn  the  Government ! 


86  3Besteoe^  bv>  tbe  Boers 

It  is  beginning  to  be  very  hard  now  for 
infants  and  invalids,  as  there  is  very  little 
food  to  be  got  of  the  sort  they  ought  to  have. 
Most  of  the  milk-farms  just  outside  the  town 
have  been  looted  and  the  cattle  driven  off 
by  the  Boers,  so  that  there  is  hardly  any  fresh 
milk  to  be  had,  and  there  is  no  great  stock 
of  condensed  on  hand.  The  military  people 
are  husbanding  the  latter  as  carefully  as  they 
can,  but  I  don't  see  how  it  can  last  very 
long.  No  one  can  buy  a  tin  of  milk 
without  a  doctor's  order,  and  this  has  to 
be  countersigned  by  the  military  officer  in 
charge  of  all  stores.  Most  of  us  doctors 
are  careful  to  give  orders  only  to  proper 
cases,  but  I  am  afraid  that  others  give  them 
indiscriminately. 

All  this  time  work  has  been  pretty  brisk. 
Dr.  Fuller  got  cut  off,  as  I  have  previously 
told  you,  and  I  have  a  few  of  his  best 
patients,  and  besides  this,  there  is  a  lot  ot 
sickness  about.  The  men  kept  moderately 
well  because  most  of  them  are  in  the  Town 
Guard  out  in  the  forts,  and  so  they  get  more 
fresh  air  and  less  whiskey  than  usual,  but  a 
good  manv  get  fever  or  diarrhoea  or  dysentery, 


/IIMUtar^  Eccentrf cities  87 

the  last  two  from  the  coarse  food  and  the 
quantity  of  water  they  drink,  on  the  hot 
days.  This  makes  a  lot  of  work,  but  not 
paying  work. 

Quite  early  Mackenzie  and  I  decided  that 
we  should  treat  all  members  of  the  defensive 
forces  free,  unless  their  illness  was  due  to 
drink  or  other  foolishness.  It  did  not  seem 
fair  to  charge  these  men,  many  ot  whom 
actually  were  risking,  and  all  of  whom  might 
have  to  risk,  their  lives  in  the  defence  of  the 
town  and  us,  and  though  I  think  we  were 
the  first  to  start  this,  all  the  other  doctors 
quickly  fell  into  the  same  way.  But  there  was 
lots  of  paying  work,  too,  amongst  the  women 
and  children,  the  latter  especially  giving  us 
a  bad  time.  At  the  best,  young  children  die 
here  with  great  rapidity  in  the  hot  weather  ; 
and  the  upside-down  state  of  affairs  of  course 
makes  things  worse  than  usual  this  year. 
Then,  too,  quite  half  one's  patients  go  of^ 
to  the  sea  for  December  and  January,  and 
they  can't  get  away  this  year.  So  on  the 
whole  the  amount  or  paying  work  has  been 
a  good  deal  larger  than  usual  this  season.  But 
we    don't    get   much    money   in,   all    the   same. 


88  Besieae&  b^  tbc  Boers 

for  several  reasons.  First  of  all,  Dorward, 
our  collector,  is  in  the  Town  Guard,  and  gets 
very  little  time  off,  and  then  we  have  told 
him  only  to  send  accounts  out  to  the  people 
who  can  well  afford  to  pay.  Even  if  he  were 
at  liberty  as  much  as  usual,  we  should  not 
let  him  go  round  collecting  as  he  usually  does. 
The  folks  have  too  much  on  their  hands  to 
be  worried  for  doctors'  money  just  at  present. 
As  long  as  we  can  make  enough  to  live  on, 
we  shall  be  satisfied  for  the  present. 

December  ■i6th. — Christmas  over  once  more, 
and  relief  as  far  off  as  ever.  Early  on  in 
the  siege,  the  folks  who  wanted  to  be  really 
funny  talked  about  relief  reaching  us  about 
Christmas-time,  and  we  all  thought  this  was 
a  joke,  but  the  jocular  part  does  not  seem 
quite  so  excruciatingly  funny  now.  Christmas 
Day  was  very  quiet,  even  more  so  than  the 
one  I  spent  on  the  North  Sea.  There  we 
had  sufficient  excitement  when  we  found  that 
the  leg  of  pork  we  had  been  saving  for 
Christmas  had  gone  bad,  but  even  that  was 
denied  us  here.  We  did  not  expect  our  ducks, 
for  which  we  paid  a  pound,  to  be  anything 
much,  and  they  weren't.     We  had  Dr.  Stoney 


/IDilitar^?  Bccentricities  89 

and  his  brother  to  dinner,  and  I  think  they 
enjoyed  themselves  in  a  quiet  way. 

There  had  been  rumours  that  a  great  fight 
was  going  to  take  place  again  at  Spytfontein, 
but  nothing  happened.  To-day  there  have 
been  rumours  that  Plumer  has  got  down 
from  Bulawayo  and  relieved  Mafeking,  but 
that  is  much  too  good  to  believe  until  pro- 
perly confirmed.  There  have  been  rumours 
of  another  sort  for  the  last  few  days — viz., 
that  the  Boers  have  captured  a  train  full  ot 
lyddite  and  other  ammunition  somewhere  be- 
tween Orange  River  and  Spytfontein,  and  this 
is  so  bad  that  it  probably  is  true.  We  have 
no  doubt  that  the  Boers  will  get  hammered 
in  the  end,  but  at  present  most  of  the  signs 
point  the  other  way.  We  here  in  Kimbcrley 
are  hoping  a  good  deal  from  Sir  Charles 
Warren.  He  has  been  up  this  way  before, 
and  knows  both  the  country  and  the  Boers, 
but  whether  he  will  come  or  not  is  very 
doubtful.  There  are  many  men  here  who 
served  with  him  before,  and  they  have  great 
belief  in  him. 

We  had  a  Christmas  message  from  Sir 
Alfred  Milner.     He  did   not  wish  us  a  merry 


90  3Besieoe^  b^  tbe  Boers 

Christmas,  but  a  lucky  one,  and  we  appreciated 
the  wording  of  the  message. 

Yesterday  we  had  a  new  proclamation,  to 
the  effect  that  no  one  should  kill  or  cause 
to  be  killed  any  ox,  cow,  bull,  sheep,  lamb, 
goat,  kid,  or  pig  without  permission.  So 
things  are  getting  rather  tight.  Our  next- 
door  neighbour  has  a  small  red  pig  (looks 
like  a  Tamworth)  about  six  weeks  old,  that 
runs  about  his  yard.  It  seems  too  funny  that 
he  should  not  be  able  to  kill  this  small  swine 
without  getting  a  permit.  I  suppose  the 
idea  is  that  people  who  kill  at  home  will  not 
be  allowed  meat  from  the  butcher  till  they 
have  eaten   their  kill. 

The  Boers  have  been  shelling  at  Wesselton 
Mine  again  to-day,  but  I  don't  think  they 
have  done  any  damage.  It  must  be  an  awful 
sell  to  them  to  find  that  we  have  managed  a 
decent  water  supply  after  they  cut  us  off  from 
the  river.  Of  course  they  know  about  our 
getting  water  from  Wesselton,  and  I  suppose 
they  keep  potting  away  there  in  the  hope 
that  they  may  burst  up  the  pumps,  but  as 
the  machinery  is  all  in  the  mine,  I  don't  think 
that  they  have  a  very  gaudy  chance  of  doing 


/UMlitars  Bccentricities  91 

so.  However,  the  more  they  shoot  the  better, 
for  modern  guns  don't  stand  an  unlimited 
amount  of  firing,  as  the  rifling  wears  away, 
particularly  in  the  heavier  ones,  so  we  hope 
they  will  pot  away  (harmlessly)  with  great 
vigour. 

December  'T^ist. — Very  little  has  happened 
since  I  wrote  in  the  way  of  war.  On  several 
occasions  we  have  heard  distant  firing,  so  our 
relief  column  is  either  shelling  the  Boers 
or  being  shelled  ;  but  which,  we  don't 
know.  To-day  there  is  a  rumour  that  our 
men  have  taken  Scholtz  Nek,  which  is  an 
important  point  held  by  the  Boers  not  far 
from  Spytfontein,  but  we  have  not  had  this 
confirmed  yet.  The  paper  has  been  for  the 
last  few  days  full  of  yarns  as  to  how  the 
War  Office  and  England  is  wakening  up  to 
the  fact  that  they  are  in  for  a  bigger  business 
than  they  imagined.  This  is  very  reassuring, 
but  one  can't  help  feeling  mad  at  the  way 
we  are  kept  cooped  up  here,  and,  as  far  as  we 
know,  no  fresh  steps  at  all  being  taken  to 
help  us  out.  We  had  hoped  that  Warren 
would  come  up  this  way,  but  to-day  I  hear 
he  has  gone  to  Natal. 


CHAPTER    VI 
THE   FOOD   PROBLEM 

OF  course  we  all  know  that  we  are  merely 
a  pawn  in  the  game,  and  that  it  does  not 
much  matter  to  England  what  becomes  of  us, 
but  it  matters  a  good  deal  to  us.  We  are  now 
just  going  to  begin  to  feel  the  nip  of  the  siege. 
One  day  last  week  we  had  a  proclamation  that 
various  necessaries,  such  as  flour,  meal,  bread, 
rice,  sugar,  etc.,  would  in  future  only  be  issued 
in  stated  quantities,  and  that  only  to  the  holders 
of  permits.  To  get  a  permit  for  any  one  of 
these  things  you  had  to  make  a  declaration  of 
the  quantities  of  all  of  them  which  you  had  in 
your  possession,  and  not  only  that,  but  you  had 
also  to  declare  the  quantities  of  every  kind  of 
provision  which  you  had.  So  to  get  a  little, 
say,  sugar,  you  would  have  to  give  the  military 
a  list  of  everything  you  had,  and  I  have  no 
doubt   they  would  keep  a  list  of  those  things 

92 


Z\)c  foo^  problem  93 

which  you  had  rather  a  large  quantity  of,  and 
commandeer  them  later  on. 

This  seems  all  right  in  theory,  but  having 
myself  been  one  of  the  provident  ones,  I  don't 
at  all  appreciate  the  idea  of  being  looted  for 
the  benefit  of  the  improvident  ones.  The  only 
thing  we  wanted  was  bread.  We  had  a  good 
store  of  flour,  but  did  not  care  to  bake  for 
ourselves  if  we  could  help  it.  I  went  to  Major 
Gorle,  the  head  of  the  food  supply  arrange- 
ments, and  proposed  a  compromise  to  him. 
My  bread  allowance  came  to  about  twenty 
pounds  a  week,  so  I  offered  to  give  his  baker 
twenty-five  pounds  of  flour  a  week  in  exchange 
for  that  amount  of  bread,  the  extra  flour  to 
pay  for  labour  and  fuel.  I  thought  it  seemed 
a  fair  ofl^er,  but  I  suppose  he  thought  it  would 
be  a  bad  precedent,  for  he  declined  to  accept 
it.  He  off*ered,  however,  to  supply  me  with 
bread  as  long  as  the  siege  lasted  if  I  handed 
over  all  my  flour  to  him  in  a  lump.  But  this 
I  declined,  for  he  cannot  know  how  long  the 
siege  will  last,  and  though  my  flour  would 
be  a  drop  in  the  ocean  for  the  whole  of 
Kimberley,  it  will  last  me  quite  three  months. 
So   as   soon   as   our   baker   gives   up   supplying 


94  1Bc5iCQC^  by  tbe  JSoers 

us  with  bread,  we  shall  start  baking  our 
own. 

As  for  meat,  just  now  we  "  dunno  where 
we  are,"  for  the  butcher  has  given  notice 
that  he  will  not  be  allowed  to  supply  us  after 
to-day,  as  the  military  are  going  to  take  over 
the  meat  supply,  but  so  far  the  military  have 
not  made  their  method  of  procedure  public. 
Vegetables  are  also  very  scarce.  The  military 
have  taken  over  the  regulation  of  them,  and 
as  usual  have  so  far  made  a  ghastly  muddle  of 
it.  Yesterday  they  advertised  to  supply  them 
at  a  certain  place  from  6  a.m.  to  10.30.  Agnes 
suggested  that  she  should  go  and  get  some, 
but  I,  knowing  something  of  the  crush  there 
would  be,  said  :  *'  Not  much."  I  went  myself 
at  a  little  after  six  o'clock,  and  found  the 
street  full,  so  I  came  home  and  did  some 
gardening,  and  I  afterwards  heard  that  nothing 
was  sold  till  nearly  eleven  o'clock. 

After  this  I  don't  look  forward  with  any 
keen  enjoyment  to  the  military  administration 
of  the  meat  supply.  We  can  get  a  little 
greenstuff  out  of  our  own  garden,  enough  to 
keep  us  from  getting  scurvy,  but  not  much 
more.      When    the  water  was   cut    off  by   the 


Ube  jfoob  problem  95 

Boers,  we  were  not  allowed  to  water  our 
gardens  (though  many  people  have  done  so), 
and  as  we  imagined  a  week  or  two,  or  at 
the  very  outside  a  month,  would  see  us  free, 
we  did  not  worry  about  the  vegetables,  but 
tried  to  keep  our  fruit-trees  and  vines  alive. 

Now,  hov/ever,  as  we  look  like  being  shut 
up  for  all  time,  I  am  going  to  run  my 
vegetable-garden  again.  I  have  succeeded  in 
getting  one  of  the  borough  water-carts  to 
bring  me  two  loads  of  water  a  week.  The 
water  is  supplied  by  De  Beers  ;  they  have 
to  pump  a  lot  out  of  the  mine,  and  have 
laid  on  a  big  pipe  to  the  nearest  street,  and 
practically  any  one  can  get  water  who  cares 
to  lead  it.  The  cart  holds'  about  four  hun- 
dred gallons,  and  I  have  some  tanks  and 
barrels  to  store  it  in  during  the  days  between 
the  loads,  so  I  shall  get  on  all  right.  Of 
course  the  water  is  very  hard,  but  it  is  a 
very  great  deal  better  than  none, 

I  have  put  in  potatoes,  lettuce,  dwarf  beans, 
peas,  mustard  and  cress,  and  Indian  corn  this 
week,  and  have  just  got  some  tomatoes  up  in 
the  greenhouse  to  be  transplanted  presently. 
Beet   is    the   best    thing   of   all    to   grow   here  ; 


96  BesiegeO  b^  tbe  Boers 

it  grows  well,  and  you  can  take  the  outside 
leaves  off  time  after  time  just  like  we  used 
to  do  off  the  wurzels  at  Garton  for  the  cows. 
When  the  leaves  are  boiled,  you  can't  tell 
them  from  spinach. 

At  last  a  Dutchman  has  been  decently 
sentenced  for  communicating  with  the  Boers. 
He  lived  far  out  at  Wesselton,  and  on  two 
occasions  was  seen  after  dark  to  leave  his 
house  (the  last  one  in  the  village)  and  go  in 
the  direction  of  the  Boer  rifle-pits,  not  return- 
ing for  several  hours.  He  could  have  no 
possible  business  in  that  quarter  at  that  time, 
so  he  must  have  been  communicating  with 
the  enemy.  The  judge  wanted  to  give  him 
a  year,  but  the  other  members  of  the  court 
declared  that  they  would  sit  for  ever  unless 
the  sentence  was  three  years'  hard,  and  so 
eventually  the  judge  gave  way,  and  he  got  it. 

A  Dutch  lawyer,  a  prominent  Bondsman 
who  cleared  out  from  here  the  day  before 
we  were  cut  off  was  captured  by  Methuen's 
people  some  weeks  ago,  and  is  now  in  gaol 
at  Cape  Town.  Rumour  says  that  when 
caught  he  was  in  an  office  telegraphing  some 
information    to    the    Boers,    but    the    truth    is 


Ube  3foo&  pcoblem  97 

not  known.  Now  he  keeps  writing  to  his 
relatives  asserting  his  innocence,  and  they  pub- 
lish his  letters.  He  says  he  was  arrested  by 
the  Boers,  as  he  was  suspected  by  them,  and 
that,  being  a  leading  Bondsman,  he  was  sus- 
pected by  the  English,  When  he  is  tried, 
I  have  very  little  doubt  his  Boer  friends 
will  swear  that  he  was  arrested  by  them,  but 
Kimberley  will  never  believe  that,  whatever 
the  court  does. 

I  hear  to-day  that  the  Pretoria  Boers  are 
very  cocky  as  to  what  the  end  of  the  war 
will  be.  They  say  that  when  England  sues 
for  peace,  their  terms  will  be  Natal,  Bechuana- 
land,  and  Griqualand  West  to  be  given  up 
to  them,  and  any  other  parts  of  the  colony 
in  which  the  majority  of  the  inhabitants  wish 
to  be  under  the  Dutch  flag.  They  will  also 
demand  the  payment  of  twenty  millions.  Fairly 
good  cheek,  haven't  they  ? 

We  hear  that  Roberts  and  Kitchener  are 
coming,  or,  rather,  are  already  on  the  way, 
and  heaps  of  troops  of  all  sorts,  but  it  is  an 
anxious  time.  Try  as  I  will,  I  don't  find 
I  can  take  my  usual  amount  of  interest  in 
the    work,    and    as    to   settling    down    to    read 

7 


98  Besieaeb  b^  tbe  JBocxs 

professional  literature,  that  is  quite  out  of  the 
question. 

January  c^th^  1 900. — Very  little  has  happened 
in  the  war  line  since  the  last  entry.  On  several 
days  the  Boers  have  fired  a  few  guns  at  our 
patrols  or  the  cattle  guard,  and  one  shell  came 
into  the  town  and  went  through  an  inhabited 
house  two  days  ago,  with  the  usual  result — no 
one  hurt.  We  hear  that  the  Australian  con- 
tingent drove  the  Boers  out  of  Douglas  on 
January  ist,  and  to-day  there  are  rumours  that 
they  have  done  the  same  at  Barkly  West,  but 
I  hardly  think  this  will  be  confirmed.  But  if 
nothing  military  has  been  happening,  we  have 
had  lots  of  other  distractions.  On  January  ist 
the  new  proclamation  about  meat  came  out. 
The  butchers  had  to  cease  selling  at  their 
shops,  and  the  whole  arrangement  was  taken 
over  by  the  military.  The  new  allowance  was 
a  quarter  of  a  pound  per  day  for  adults,  and 
two  ounces  for  children  under  twelve. 

The  meat  was  to  be  distributed  in  the  new 
Market  Hall,  and  the  three  wards  that  formed 
half  the  town  were  to  go  in  and  be  served  at 
one  side,  and  the  other  three  on  the  other. 
This  was  for  white  people  only  ;  coloured  folks 


XL\yc  foob  problem  99 

and  natives  had  a  separate  place,  each  in  a 
different  part  of  the  town.  Railings  were  put 
up  at  the  sides  of  the  Market  Hall,  with  three 
gates,  and  each  ward  formed  up  in  front  of  its 
own  gate,  in  a  two-and-two  string,  and  was 
let  in  four  at  a  time. 

The  day  before  the  new  arrangement  began 
every  head  of  a  house  had  to  send  in  a  notice 
stating  the  number  of  adults  and  children  there 
were  in  his  family,  and  the  quantity  of  meat 
he  wished  to  draw,  so  that  when  he  turned  up 
for  his  supply,  his  demand  could  be  checked 
from  the  list  made  out  from  all  the  requisitions. 
He  was  then  given  a  numbered  card,  with  the 
quantity  he  was  entitled  to  stamped  upon  it 
and  properly  signed,  so  that  in  future  he  would 
just  have  to  show  this  card  and  there  would 
be  no  further  bother.  The  distribution  began 
at  6  a.m.  on  the  3rd. 

Agnes  wanted  to  go  and  fetch  our  supply, 
but  I  did  not  care  for  her  to  do  so.  I 
had  been  out  in  the  night  and  was  tired,  so 
we  neither  of  us  went  that  day,  as  we  had 
enough  meat  on  hand.  Being  the  first  day, 
all  the  arrangements  were  strange  and  the 
tickets  had   to  be   made  out   and  so   on,  so  it 


loo  Be5ieoe&  b\?  tbc  JSocrs 

took  a  long  while,  but  it  was  very  superior  to 
the  previous  indiscriminate  fighting  for  meat 
at  the  butchers'. 

Next  day  I  went  along  about  6  a.m.  and 
found  I  was  pretty  late,  heaps  of  folks  being 
there  before  me.  I  came  near  the  tail  of  the 
string.  My  ward  (No.  2)  and  another  (No.  6) 
are  each  of  them  quite  three  times  the  size 
of  any  of  the  others,  so  these  wards  were  not 
half  done  when  the  others  were  all  served, 
and  consequently  were  at  a  disadvantage.  It 
took  over  an  hour  to  draw  my  pound  of  meat 
that  day.  All  dealings  are  for  cash,  ninepence 
a  pound  being  the  fixed  price. 

The  officer  in  charge  of  all  food  matters, 
Major  Gorle,  is  a  smart  man,  and  he  saw  at 
once  that  it  would  not  do  to  put  the  two 
b'\(y  wards  in  a  worse  position  than  the  small 
ones,  so  for  the  third  morning  he  arranged 
that  the  two  big  wards  should  draw  two  days' 
supply  one  day,  and  on  the  next  day  the 
four  small  ones  should  do  the  same.  This 
hurried  things  up  a  good  deal,  for  of  course 
only  half  the  people  had  to  be  served  every 
day  instead  of  the  whole  of  them  That  day 
I  left  the  house  about  half-past  five,  and  was 


Ube  foo&  problem  loi 

back  very  soon  after  six.  Vegetables  are  to  be 
given  out  in  a  similar  way  twice  a  week,  but 
I  have  not  been  on  a  vegetable  day  yet. 

The  present  arrangement  is  very  good.  The 
elimination  of  natives  and  coloured  people, 
and  the  presence  of  a  few  police  and  soldiers, 
makes  everything  quite  orderly,  and,  but  for  the 
tediousness  of  waiting  your  turn,  fairly  com- 
fortable. Inside  the  hall  the  meat  is  laid  out 
on  the  tables  ready  cut  up  and  weighed  into 
half,  one,  two,  three,  four  pound  lots,  so  when 
you  show  your  ticket  the  man  sees  in  a  minute 
how  much  you  are  entitled  to  and  hands  it 
over.  There  is  nothing  that  a  lady  need  object 
to  in  the  whole  business  novs^,  so  I  shall  let 
Agnes  go  if  I  happen  to  be  out  on  the  days 
we  want  our  supply. 

You  are  allowed  to  send  another  white 
person,  servant  or  otherwise,  to  fetch  your 
ration,  but  he  or  she  will  have  to  take  his  turn 
just  in  the  same  way.  You  are  also  allowed 
to  send  a  coloured  or  native  servant,  but  these 
have  to  wait  till  the  whites  present  are  all 
served,  so  that  dodge  is  not  good  enough,  or 
we  should  send  John.  Our  white  servant  is 
too  big  a  fool  to  send,  so  one  of  us  has  to  go. 


I02  36esieoe&  b^  tbe  JBocvb 

It  is  very  funny  to  see  all  the  town's  big 
swells  either  fetching  their  meat  themselves 
or  sending  a  member  of  their  family  for  it. 
Parsons,  lawyers,  doctors,  business  men,  we 
are  all  there,  and  it  is  a  huge  joke  that  we 
are  all  in  the  same  boat,  but  it  is  to  be  hoped 
the  joke  won't  last  too  long.  Previous  to  this, 
we  have  all  thought  that  as  long  as  there  was 
a  decent  balance  at  the  bank,  nothing  could  go 
far  wrong,  but  now  we  find  that  the  balance 
is  of  very  little  use.  You  can  only  buy 
necessaries,  and  these  only  in  strictly  defined 
quantities,  not  too  liberal.  As  for  luxuries, 
they  are  either  not  to  be  had  at  all  or  else 
only  on  production  of  a  medical  certificate 
that  they  are  absolutely  necessary,  as  you  are 
ill.  So  unless  you  have  a  private  stock  of 
luxuries,  or  other  things  intermediate  between 
necessaries  and  luxuries,  you  have  to  live  very 
sparely  and  monotonously. 

The  permit  business  is  a  perfect  nuisance 
to  us  doctors.  Every  patient  you  have  ever 
'A>  seen,  whether  aHk  or  not,  considers  that  there 
are  special  circumstances  which  entitle  him 
or  her  to  have  a  permit  from  you  to  buy 
milk,    butter,    stout,    cheese,    oatmeal,    mutton 


Ube  ifooD  problem  103 

(beef  or  veal  only  being  generally  supplied), 
extract  of  beef,  and  heaps  of  other  things. 
We  are  between  the  devil  and  the  deep  sea. 
On  the  one  side  the  patients  clamouring, 
and  getting  offended  if  they  don't  get  permits 
for  everything  they  fancy,  and  on  the  other 
Major  Gorle  making  trouble  if  we  send  in 
too  many.  Most  of  us  only  give  them  in 
cases  where  we  feel  sure  that  the  applicant  is 
actually  suffering  in  health  for  want  of  the 
food-stuff  asked  for  ;  but  some  of  the  doctors 
are  either  very  soft-hearted  or  easily  imposed 
upon.  Milk  (condensed)  is  the  chief  thing 
wanted,  and  the  stock  is  none  too  great,  so  we 
have  to  be  careful. 

The  Boers  have  raided  most  of  our  milk 
cows,  so  fresh  milk  is  very  scarce,  but  there 
is  some,  and  we  are  amongst  the  lucky 
ones  who  get  it.  You  would  think  that 
the  military  would  have  asked  the  doctors  to 
hold  a  meeting  and  decide  what  to  do  about 
permits  for  milk  and  other  things,  giving  us 
a  rough  idea  of  the  amounts  in  stock  and 
the  daily  amount  it  was  safe  to  issue  ;  but 
such  Is  not  the  military  way.  So  far  they 
have    given    us    no   instructions    whatever,  and 


104  BesieoeD  bv  tbe  Boers 

within  the  last  three  days  they  have  told  me 
that  the  total  available  amount  per  day  is 
twenty  tins,  Watkins  that  it  is  forty,  and 
Mackenzie  that  it  is  twenty-five.  You  can't 
work  with  figures  like  that. 

Now  the  colonel  is  half  inclined  to  com- 
mandeer all  the  fresh  milk  and  issue  it  only 
to  infants  and  invalids.  This  would  be  rather 
a  good  plan,  as  it  would  save  a  lot  of  the 
condensed  milk,  and  we  should  then  have  a 
reserve  in  case  the  milk  cows  had  to  be  killed 
for  food.  We  should  miss  our  fresh  milk, 
but  would  quite  gladly  give  it  up,  if  we  were 
sure  it  fell  into  the  right  mouths  when  we 
had  done  so.  At  present,  if  we  did,  it  would 
probably  go  to  some  one  who  needs  it  no 
more  than  we  do,  and  that  is  not  worth  while. 
Many  of  the  people  are  very  good  about  the 
milk.  The  De  Beers  Company  supplies  the 
hospital  with  a  great  deal,  and  just  now  they 
are  sending  a  good  quantity  to  Agnes  for  free 
distribution  among  the  sick  and  poor.  She 
is  a  boss  in  the  Benevolent  Society,  and  so 
knows  who  is  deserving.  One  patient  of  mine 
has  a  cow  of  his  own,  and  after  keeping  a 
moderate  supply  for  his  own  children,  he  allows 


Ube  foo^  {problem  105 

me    to   use    the    rest    for    any    one  who    needs 
it,  free. 

Every  one,  however,  is  not  so  good.  Some 
genius  who  did  not  care  for  black  tea  or  coffee 
struck  the  happy  idea  of  getting  in  some  of 
the  tinned  infants'  foods  which  contained  milk 
and  using  them  as  milk.  This  however,  did 
not  last  long,  as  I  expect  the  fact  of  young 
single  men  buying  babies'  food  led  to  inquiries. 
Anyhow,  one  of  the  parsons  told  me  of  it, 
and  I  went  straight  off  to  Gorle  to  suggest 
the  commandeering  of  all  infants'  foods,  and 
found  that  he  had  already  done  so,  so  he  is 
pretty  wide  awake. 

To-day  (January  7th)  I  got  my  supply  of 
vegetables  at  the  same  time  as  my  supply  of 
meat,  and  considered  myself  lucky  to  get  them. 
The  quantity  was  for  half  a  week  for  four 
people,  and  consisted  of  a  bunch  of  five  carrots, 
none  of  them  big,  four  small  parsnips,  and  nine 
beetroots,  none  of  them  as  big  as  a  big  radish 
— price  one  shilling.  But  one  gets  a  few  little 
presents,  or  is  able  to  buy  small  quantities  of 
vegetables  and  fruit  from  people  who  have  wells 
in  their  gardens,  and  so  are  independent  of  the 
water  supply. 


io6  3Besiege&  b^  tbe  JBoers 

To-day  Mackenzie  bought  a  lot  of  beautiful 
peaches  for  himself  and  me  at  three-halfpence 
each.  Agnes  says  I  am  to  say  that  eggs  are 
six  shillings  and  sixpence  a  dozen.  Butter  is 
a  thing  of  the  past,  except  in  tins,  and  that  only 
(as  usual)  with  a  doctor's  certificate.  We  had 
several  lots  of  beautiful  fresh  butter  from  a 
patient  long  after  it  was  unbuyable.  She  had 
a  child  down  with  scarlet  fever,  and  conse- 
quently was  afraid  to  send  the  butter  to  her 
brother's  and  sister's  families  for  fear  of  in- 
fecting them,  but  you  bet  I  did  not  mind 
that,  and  offered  to  buy  her  surplus  stock. 
She  refused,  but  gave  me  about  a  pound  several 
times.  Of  course  I  made  it  level  with  honey 
or  sweets,  or  something  of  that  sort,  for  the 
kids. 

On  January  ist  we  were  delighted  to  find 
a  notice  in  the  paper  that  the  water  would  be 
turned  on  for  watering  gardens  on  and  after 
Tuesday,  January  2nd.  I  found  the  tap  would 
run  on  the  ist,  so  I  stole  a  day  and  gave  all 
my  garden  a  fine  old  soaking.  Having  been 
so  virtuous  all  those  weeks  and  not  used  a 
drop  of  tap-water  unnecessarily,  I  felt  easy  in 
my  mind. 


XTbe  jfooD  problem  107 

Now  we  thought  we  should  be  able  to  grow 
all  sorts  of  vegetables,  and  so  we  rushed  lots 
of  seeds  in.  I  also  put  in  a  patch  of  barley  to 
cut  green  for  my  horses,  only  a  little  one,  but 
still  it  will  be  a  help.  I  put  in  some  mealies 
too,  but  you  will  know  them  better  under  the 
name  of  Indian  corn.  When  they  grow  up, 
the  green  stems  and  leaves  are  good  fodder 
for  horses.  I  had  a  few  plants  already  in  of 
sweet  mealies,  such  as  the  Americans  call  sweet 
corn  or  popcorn,  and  I  stuck  a  lot  more  of 
them  in.  I  got  the  seed  from  Gardner 
Williams,  who,  you  will  remember,  is  the 
general  manager  of  De  Beers,  and  is  an 
American — and  a  first-class  one  too. 

But,  alas  !  on  Friday  a  new  notice  appeared, 
that  no  gardens  were  to  be  watered,  under 
the  same  pains  and  penalties  as  before.  This 
was  bad.  But  as  the  taps  seemed  inclined 
to  run  still,  I  thought  it  a  pity  to  disappoint 
them  and  let  them  set  fast  for  want  of  use, 
so  I  watered  away  on  the  sly,  Friday,  Saturday, 
and  to-day  (Sunday,  January  8th).  But  I 
have  talked  the  thing  over  with  one  of  the 
waterworks  men  and  the  military  officer  who 
is  responsible   for    the   water    supply,  and   they 


io8  BestccjeC)  b\^  tbe  Boevs 

give  very  good  reasons  why  the  gardens  cannot 
be  watered,  so  I  shall  relapse  into  virtue  again, 
and  use  tap-water  only  for  necessary  domestic 
purposes  ;  but  I  mean  to  give  up  the  measly 
little  saucer-bath  we  have  been  using,  and 
use  my  big  bath  with  a  fair  quantity  of  water. 

The  reasons  why  we  can't  water  our  gar- 
dens are  these  :  all  our  water  supply  now  is 
pumped  from  Wesselton  Mine,  and  the  daily 
supply  is  two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
gallons,  whereas  the  daily  consumption,  with- 
out watering  any  gardens,  is  three  hundred 
thousand  gallons.  When  the  water-pipes  from 
the  river  were  cut  by  the  Boers,  our  reservoir 
was  full,  but  the  difference  between  supply 
and  consumption  lowers  it  about  half  an  inch 
a  day  ;  so  if  the  siege  lasts  long  enough,  the 
reservoir  will  in  time  become  empty. 

Another  reason  is  that  the  Dutch  are  always 
shelling  Wesselton,  so  one  day  they  may 
happen  to  drop  a  shell  into  the  pump,  and 
then  good-bye  to  our  water.  The  pipes  from 
Wesselton  run  a  good  long  way  outside  our 
line  of  defences,  and  the  Boers  could  cut  them 
easily  enough  if  they  knew  just  where  they 
ran,    and    had    the  pluck  to  come  and    do   it. 


Zbc  3foo^  iproblcin  109 

If  either  of  these  things  happened,  the  water 
in  the  reservoir  would  be  the  last  we  should 
get,  so  it  is  wise  to  keep  it  as  full  as  we 
can  without  actually  stinting  ourselves  for 
necessary  water. 

When  the  water  was  on,  we  thought  we 
were  going  to  do  great  things  in  the  garden- 
ing line,  and  grow  almost  enough  vegetables 
to  keep  us  going.  We  put  a  lot  of  seeds  in  ; 
but  whether  we  shall  manage  to  keep  them 
going,  is  another  matter.  Greenstuff  for  horses 
being  very  scarce,  I  put  in  a  little  patch  of 
barley,  and  a  lot  of  mealies  in  the  trench 
down  which  the  bath-water  runs.  The  mealies 
when  cut  green  make  good  food  for  horses. 
Of  course  I  shall  have  nothing  like  enough 
to  feed  them  on,  but  it  will  give  them  a 
taste  of  greenstuff. 


CHAPTER    VII 

HORSE    FOR    DINNER 

FORAGE  is  a  big  difficulty  just  now.  The 
military  give  us  doctors  a  forage  allow- 
ance, dry  mealies  principally,  but  nearly  all  the 
cabs  have  stopped  for  want  of  forage  for  the 
horses,  and  the  trams  are  going  to  be  stopped 
next  week,  I  hear.  There  are  no  horses  for 
the  milk  or  bread  carts  ;  everybody  has  to  fetch 
his  own.  Presently  there  will  be  no  carts  in 
the  place  except  the  military  ones,  the  doctors', 
and  the  hearse. 

At  last  (January  loth)  we  have  begun  to 
feel  the  siege  a  little  more  acutely.  On 
Monday  the  people  who  went  for  meat  were 
told  that  they  could  only  take  half  their 
allowance  in  beef ;  the  other  half  must  be 
taken  in  horseflesh  or  else  gone  without. 
Lots  of  people  went  without.  We  are  not 
compelled  to  kill  horses  just  yet,  but  as  forage 


Iborse  tot  Dinner  m 

has  become  so  scarce,  plenty  of  horses  which 
are  now  in  fair  condition  must  be  turned 
out  on  the  veldt,  and  there  they  will  soon 
become  very  poor.  The  authorities  therefore 
very  wisely  decided  that  they  had  better  be 
eaten  before  this  happened,  and  so  started  to 
kill  them  off. 

Somehow  one  does  not  quite  relish  the  idea 
of  eating  horse,  but  it  must  be  simply  because 
one  has  not  been  used  to  doing  so.  The 
horse  is  a  clean  enough  feeder,  and  ought 
to  be  all  right.  Monday  was  not  my  meat 
day,  but  I  went  along  on  Tuesday  and  took 
my  whack  of  horseflesh  like  the  rest.  By 
the  way,  I  had  managed  for  the  first  time 
on  that  day  to  get  a  meat  ticket  which 
allowed  me  to  go  in  at  the  exit  door  and  get 
my  allowance  at  once  without  waiting.  I  had 
not  before  tried  to  do  so,  as  I  did  not  want 
to  take  an  unfair  advantage  ;  but  I  found 
that  a  few  people  were  getting  these  tickets 
who  had  certainly  not  such  good  reasons  for 
wanting  them  as  I  had,  so  I  waded  in  and 
got  one  too.  I  brought  my  chunk  of  horse 
home,  and  that  night  we  had  it  for  dinner. 
If  I   had   not    known   what   it   was,   I   am   sure 


112  3BcsieacC>  b^^  tbc  Boers 

I  should  not  have  known  it  from  beef.  It 
was  tender  and  good  enough  for  anything, 
but  all  the  same  it  took  some  pushing  down, 
and  I  did  not  take  a  second  helping.  I  guess 
I  am  not  hungry  enough  yet. 

January  \\th. — There  is  a  very  good  yarn 
going  around  about  the  horseflesh  ;  I  don't 
know  whether  it  is  true  or  not,  but  it  ought 
to  be.  Colonel  Peakman,  who  is  in  command 
of  all  the  mounted  men  here — Cape  Police, 
Diamond  Fields  Horse,  and  Kimberley  Light 
Horse — is  the  hero.  The  first  day  horse  was 
served  out,  some  of  it  was  cooked  for  the 
officers'  mess  at  the  mounted  camp.  At  the 
table  Peakman  said  :  "  Gentlemen,  I  am  sorry 
to  say  that  we  were  unable  to  get  all  our 
ration  in  beef  to-day  and  had  to  take  part  of 
it  in  horseflesh.  This  which  I  am  carving  is 
beef,  the  horse  is  at  the  other  end,  and  any 
one  who  prefers  it  can  help  himself."  Nobody 
did  prefer  it,  and  so  they  all  ate  beef  and 
made  a  good  dinner.  When  they  had  finished, 
Peakman  suddenly  said  :  "  By  Jove  !  gentle- 
men, I  find  I  have  made  a  mistake  in  the 
joints  ;  this  is  the  horseflesh  and  the  other  is 
the  beef."     It  was  just  a  dodge  of  his  to  get 


Iborse  tor  Dinner  113 

them  started  on  the  horseflesh.  Since  writing 
about  our  own  experience  of  horseflesh  we  have 
had  two  more  lots,  both  times  steak,  and  this 
is  as  good  as  any  one  can  want.  It  does  not 
taste  quite  like  beef,  but  is  very  good  ;  even 
Agnes  enjoyed  it  to-day. 

All  the  week  there  has  been  a  little  shelling 


KIMBERLEY. 

SIEGE^SOUP 

Town  Hall  Depot 

TWO_PiNTS. 

U%u^r.,..Ct...'..(k^..^. 


FACSIMILE    OF    TICKET    FOR    SOUP. 


at  intervals  in  the  daytime,  but  nothing  much. 
News  of  the  column  is  scarce — in  fact,  we 
have  given  up  thinking  about  it,  and  go 
along  letting  the  evil  of  the  day  be  sufllicient 
for  it,  and  you  bet  it  is. 

The  talk  all  day  is  of  food,  and  of  the 
permits  necessary  to  get  it.  The  milk  busi- 
ness    has     changed     hands    now.       I     think     I 

8 


114  Besieged  by  tbe  iKoers 

told  you  the  colonel  was  talking  of  com- 
mandeering all  the  fresh  milk  for  infants  and 
invalids,  but  he  decided  not  to.  Instead  he 
has  handed  over  the  administration  of  the 
milk  to  a  civil  committee  consisting  of  Mr. 
Judge,  the  Mayor  (Mr.  Ohver),  Dr.  Stoney, 
Dr.  Mackenzie,  Dr.  Watkins,  and  myself. 
How  I  came  to  be  there  I  don't  know,  but 
there  I  am. 

A  central  depot  has  been  taken  for  the  issue 
of  the  milk,  and  we  have  been  trying  to  get 
people,  both  dealers  and  private  people,  to  send 
their  milk  to  this  depot.  This  has  been  done 
by  publishing  an  appeal  to  all  people  who  are 
strong  and  well  to  give  up  using  milk,  so  that 
infants  and  sick  folk  may  get  it.  We  have 
given  up  ours  now,  and  many  people  have  done 
the  same.  The  milk  is  served  out  at  the  depot, 
but  only  to  those  who  have  a  medical  certificate 
that  they  require  it.  The  military  hand  over 
one  case  (forty-eight  tins)  of  condensed  milk 
a  day  to  us,  and  tell  us  that  we  need  not  ask 
for  any  more,  as  we  shall  not  get  it.  This 
tinned  milk  is  issued  in  the  same  way — only 
on  medical  certificates. 

After    the    first  day's   work   we    found    that 


Iborse  tor  Dinner  115 

the  demand  so  far  exceeded  the  supply  that 
to  give  everybody  a  chance  we  should  have  to 
make  the  quantity  issued  to  each  very  small, 
so  we  cut  down  the  fresh  milk  to  half  a  bottle 
a  day,  and  the  condensed  to  one  tin  a  week 
for  each   person,   irrespective  of  age  or  illness 


HfrlAl*  ftftl*  Mill#  ^ '^^^)<c"'°  S<^^^ii>'^'3  Store,  Market Sq. 
Uriier    lOr  ITIIIK  Houn  :  ?  am.  to  12  ooon. 

Fresh  Milk  at  7  a.m.  CondenBed  Milit  at  10  a.m. 

A'ame   ^'^^^'^''^^-■'^'^'^  Age/^Jl*^^^ 

A  ddress  „  .^"'^  'T\j^U^^^/7<fiij?t^  rCfi-i\.^ 
Quantity  U^:^,\  I.  J^.^'t^^^^^^^^^ 
Length  of  Time  f;:^?:;,.)      ^    H/-C£^-Hi^^ 
Uate^lA'_^    C^ 


i/IX\AA-e.y^  ^Z^-njz^ 


Medical  Peactitionkb. 

All  orders  fifT  Fresh  nr  Cmtdcnsed  Milk  must  be  remwed fortnightly . 
Ap|.licHi.t  must  take  aclean  jug  tothedepflt.       Charge  ZA,  per  half -battU. 


FACSIMILE    OF    ORDER    FOR    MILK. 


or  anything.  This  worked  well  as  far  as 
the  fresh  milk  was  concerned,  but  as  one 
hundred  and  forty-four  applied  for  tins,  our 
forty-eight  did  not  nearly  meet  the  require- 
ment. Tinned  milk  is  more  popular  than 
fresh  for  several  reasons  :  many  babies  can't 
take    fresh    at    all,    a    tin    is    supposed     to    go 


ii6  Besieoc^  bv>  tbc  Boers 

farther  than  seven  half-bottles,  and  saves  sugar 
besides,  and  a  tin  has  only  to  be  fetched 
once  a  week,  whilst  the  fresh  needs  fetching 
every  day.  Of  course  the  quantities  are  quite 
insufficient,  but  we  hope  to  get  on  better  and 
be  able  to  give  larger  quantities  of  fresh  milk 
in  a  few  days'  time.  The  tinned  milk  problem 
is  hopeless  unless  we  succeed  in  persuading 
people  who  are  now  getting  tins  to  take  fresh 
milk,  and  for  the  reasons  above  given  I  don't 
think  there  is  much  hope  of  that. 

Of  course  the  dealers  who  send  in  their 
milk  are  paid  for  it,  and  the  people  who  get 
orders  for  it  have  to  pay  at  a  little  under 
the  price  given  to  the  dealers,  but  as  the  De 
Beers  Company  sends  a  big  lot  of  milk  free, 
there  is  a  profit  on  the  whole  thing  enough 
for  working  expenses,  and  also  to  allow  a 
certain  amount  to  be  given  away  to  poor 
people  who  need  it. 

This  is  the  first  time  we  have  been  allowed 
to  do  anything  at  all  by  the  military.  One 
day  this  week  I  had  to  write  to  the  colonel 
about  some  red-tape  difficulties  which  the 
Army  doctor  had  put  in  the  way  of  people 
getting    their    food,    and    I    suggested    to    him 


Iborse  tov  Dinner  117 

very  circumspectly  that  in  matters  which 
affected  the  health  and  feeding  of  the  people, 
we  all  thought  that  we  doctors  who  knew 
the  town,  the  climate,  and  the  people  might 
be  advantageously  consulted.  He  was  very 
nice,  and  saw  at  once  that  my  objection  to 
the  red-tape  difficulty  was  sound,  and  so 
he  altered  the  routine,  but  he  flatly  declined 
to  ask  any  opinion  from  the  general  body 
of  the  doctors,  as  they  might  have  ideas 
which  would  "  affect  the  military  situation." 
This  is  the   stock   answer  to   everything. 

I  believe  food  (cheese)  has  been  stored 
until  it  has  gone  bad,  as  if  it  were  issued,  it 
would  "affect  the  military  situation."  One  is 
often  very  much  tempted  to  say,  "  Oh,  damn 
the  military  situation  ;  let  us  have  a  little 
common  sense  for  a  change."  The  colonel 
blarneyed  me  a  bit  all  the  same.  He  said 
that  he  should  always  be  glad  to  talk  over 
medical  questions  with  a  single  sensible  man 
like  myself,  but  he  could  not  be  badgered 
by  all   the  doctors  at  once. 

Later  on  in  the  day  he  ran  across  me,  and 
did  consult  with  mc  over  the  scurvy  amongst 
the     natives.       Usually     the      natives     in     the 


ii8  J6esiege&  b^  tbe  Boers 

compounds  get  fruit  and  vegetables  enough  to 
prevent  their  getting  scurvy,  but  since  we 
have  had  to  depend  on  ourselves  for  fruit  and 
vegetables  the  supply  has  fallen  very  far  short 
of  the  demand,  and  of  course  the  native  supply 
has  gone  to  a  large  extent  to  the  Europeans. 
As  a  consequence,  heaps  of  them  have  developed 
scurvy.  Nine  hundred  is  the  number  now 
on  hand. 

Gardner  Williams  had  consulted  me  on  the 
same  point  earHer  in  the  day.  The  problem 
was  what  we  could  give  the  natives,  as  there 
was  practically  no  lime  juice  and  no  vegetables 
at  all,  and  they  must  have  vegetable  stuff  of 
some  kind,  or  they  would  all  die.  I  worried 
over  the  thing  all  day,  trying  to  think  of 
something  that  grew  in  sufficient  quantity  and 
yet  was  not  used  by  Europeans,  and  at  last 
I  think  I  struck  it. 

You  have  somewhere  a  small  photo,  which  I 
sent  you  when  I  was  at  the  hospital,  of  Bishop 
and  myself  standing  by  a  clump  of  those  big 
aloes — they  are  not  really  aloes  ;  it  is  a  wrong 
name,  but  they  are  always  called  so.  There 
are  heaps  of  them  all  over  the  town,  as  they 
make  a  very  good  fence.     Now  I  remembered 


Iborse  for  Binner  119 

that  in  Mexico  the  natives  make  a  drink  of  the 
juice  of  these  things  by  letting  it  ferment,  so 
I  did  not  see  why  the  fresh  juice  should  not 
be  used  as  a  vegetable  drink  for  these  scurvy 
boys.  And  by-and-by  I  struck  a  better  idea 
still,  and  that  was  to  give  them  the  fresh  green 
shoots  from  the  vines.  There  are  many  use- 
less shoots  on  a  vine  which  are  cut  off  to 
prevent  it  running  too  much  to  wood.  When 
young  they  are  soft  and  succulent,  like  the 
young  shoots  of  a  rose-tree,  but  are  refreshingly 
acid,  like  sorrel,  and  I  think  they  should  do 
splendidly.  The  Company  has  thousands  of 
vines  at  Kenilworth,  and  so  they  have  the 
medicine  (if  it  turns  out  to  be  so)  ready  to 
their  hands.  I  told  Williams  and  the  colonel 
these  ideas,  and  they  started  right  away  on  the 
vine  shoots.  The  boys  like  them  immensely, 
and  eat  them  readily.  I  hope  it  will  be  a 
success,  as  I  shall  get  some  kudos  if  it  is, 
and  the  natives  will  get  better.  The  aloe 
juice  will  perhaps  be  tried  later,  if  the  supply 
of  the  other  stuff"  should  give  out. 

The  native  question  has  been,  and  is  still, 
a  very  serious  one.  At  the  beginning  of  the 
siege    we    had   a   good    many   thousand    natives 


I20  BesiCGCt)  b^  tbc  JBocvs 

in  the  compounds — quite  fifteen  thousand,  I 
should  think.  Of  course  these  needed  an 
enormous  amount  of  food,  and  when  the  siege 
began  to  be  prolonged,  various  efforts  were 
made  to  get  rid  of  them.  One  big  body  was 
sent  out  early  in  November,  and  was  promptly 
sent  back  by  the  Boers  ;  but  latterly  they  have 
been  sent  out  in  smaller  numbers,  and  either 
the  Boers  are  afraid  to  molest  them  or  they 
manage  to  dodge  the  Boers. 

Report  says  that  the  Boers  are  taking  them 
over  and  either  using  them  to  make  their  en- 
trenchments or  to  work  the  mines  in  Johannes- 
burg. It  is  rather  a  sell,  if  the  natives  we 
send  out  are  used  to  build  forts  for  guns  to 
bombard  us ;  but  a  native  chief  I  know  of 
here  says  that  the  Boers  dare  not  touch  his 
people,  as  his  great  chief  (Lerothodi,  the  Basuto 
head  chief)  has  forty  thousand  men,  well 
armed,  at  his  command,  and  would  tackle 
the  Free  State  at  once  if  his  subjects  were 
molested. 

Perhaps  you  will  wonder  why  the  British 
don't  turn  the  Basutos  on  to  the  Free  State. 
I  suppose  if  the  Basutos  got  the  better  of  the 
Dutch,    they   would    then    tackle    the    English, 


IfDorse  for  Dlimet  121 

for  though  they  like  the  English  much  better 
than  the  Dutch,  if  they  once  got  fighting  I 
do  not  expect  they  would  discriminate  between 
one  white  and  another,  especially  as  they  have 
never  been  really  beaten. 

I  think  there  is  no  doubt  the  Boers  have 
put  up  more  forts  around  us,  and  we  are 
daily  expecting  more  bombarding  ;  this  time 
probably  on  a  larger  scale.  It  has  been 
rumoured  all  the  last  week  that  the  new 
bombardment  was  to  begin  next  day,  but  so 
far  it  has  not  commenced.  The  longer  it  is 
put  off,  the  better  we  shall  be  pleased,  for  many 
reasons.  De  Beers'  are  making  a  big  gun,  and 
seem  to  think  that  it  will  be  satisfactory  ;  it 
will  carry  about  a  thirty-pound  shell,  and  if 
anything  like  successful,  should  have  a  range 
nearly  twice  that  of  any  gun  we  have  at  present. 
Our  gunners  seem  to  be  much  better  shots 
than  the  Boers',  so  we  hope  they  will  be  able 
to  amuse  themselves  and  instruct  the  Boers 
with  the  new  gun,  which  is  expected  to  be 
ready  in  about  a  week. 

One  of  our  men — in  fact,  he  is  the  builder 
who  built  this  house — is  reported  to  have  done 
a  splendid  shot  one  day  last  week.     The   cattle 


122  BcBiCQC^  b^  the  Boers 

go  out  a  little  way  to  graze,  with  a  strong 
body  of  mounted  men  as  a  guard,  but  this 
guard  seems  to  be  placed  on  the  Kimberley  side 
of  the  cattle.  On  the  other  side  of  the  cattle 
a  number  of  crack  rifle  shots  are  scattered 
behind  stones  or  whatever  cover  they  can  get, 
and  they  just  pot  away  gently  at  any  Boer 
within  range.  The  Boers  have  a  similar  lot 
of  "  snipers "  out.  Our  man  is  said  to  have 
bowled  a  Boer  sniper  over  at  over  two  thousand 
yards'  range.  I  hope  it  is  so,  for  the  Boers  don't 
like  any  other  people  to  do  good  shooting. 

By  the  way,  I  think  I  have  forgotten  to  tell 
you  of  our  last  military  order.  This  came  out 
some  time  ago,  and  is  that  all  lights  have  to  be 
put  out  at  9.30  p.m.  This  is  to  make  people 
careful  of  their  parafiin  and  candles,  whether 
they  like  it  or  not.  Of  course  some  permits 
are  allowed,  and,  equally  of  course,  I  have  one, 
as  I  often  read  after  going  to  bed.  The  rule 
is  not  rigidly  enforced  in  case  of  illness,  but 
people  have  to  show  evidence  that  there  is 
illness  in  the  house  if  so  required. 

January  list. — The  great  event  of  the  week 
has  been  the  completion  and  trial  of  the  new 
gun.     Here  I  was  interrupted,  and  have  had  no 


Iborse  for  Dinner  123 

further  chance  to  write  until  now  (January  26th), 
and  in  the  meantime  we  have  had  so  much  to 
think  about  that  we  have  not  worried  about 
the  big  gun.  On  the  morning  of  Wednesday 
(the  24th)  the  Boers  began  to  shell  us  again  quite 
early  in  the  morning,  and  we  soon  found  that 
it  was  quite  different  from  the  shelling  we  had 
had  before.  The  shells  came  from  all  sides, 
and,  as  we  found  out  later,  at  least  eight  guns 
were  at  work.  None  of  them  were  bigger  than 
they  used  before,  but  they  were  either  better 
guns  or  better  worked  and  had  better  ammuni- 
tion, for  they  reached  every  part  of  the  town, 
except  one  small  area  near  the  De  Beers  mine. 

January  i%th. — Busy  again  till  now.  Most 
of  the  shells  are  of  the  kind  we  are  used  to, 
just  like  those  we  had  in  the  first  bombard- 
ment; but  a  good  many  were  also  the  shrapnel, 
which  I  told  you  about  before,  and  which  are 
very  much  more  dangerous.  The  bombard- 
ment went  on  all  the  24th,  all  that  night, 
and  all  the  25th  until  about  9.30  p.m.,  and 
then  pretty  well  stopped,  though  a  few  shells 
came  in  on  the  26th,  but  nothing  to  hurt.  I 
suppose  this  even  has  been  child's  play  to  the 
bombardment    of   Mafeking,    but    it    has    been 


124  3Bc9teae&  H^  tF)c  Boers 

quite  bad  enough.  During  the  two  days, 
about  eight  hundred  shells  were  fired  in 
The  hottest  time  was,  as  usual,  from  about 
3  a.m.  to  8  a.m.,  and  again  late  in  the  after- 
noon, especially  down  in  Beaconsfield  at  the 
latter  time.  Previously  no  shells  had  quite 
reached  us,  but  they  have  been  all  round  us 
this  time.  We  did  not  bother  much  about 
them  on  Wednesday  morning,  though  we 
could  hear  the  whiz  pretty  distinctly  and  then 
the  report,  which  showed  they  were  not  far 
away.  Just  as  we  were  sitting  down  to  break- 
fast, one  whizzed  past,  apparently  very  near  to 
the  house  end,  and  burst  close  by,  only  about 
a  hundred  and  fifty  yards  away.  Our  house 
is  almost  directly  between  the  place  it  dropped 
and  the  Dutch  gun,  so  it  must  have  gone 
very  close  to  us.  It  was  a  shrapnel,  and  it 
is  just  as  well  it  missed  us. 

After  this,  things  quieted  down  a  little, 
and  I  don't  think  any  more  came  quite  as 
close  to  us.  Oh  yes,  one  dropped  about  a 
hundred  yards  from  the  same  end  of  the  house, 
and  wrecked  a  house  just  at  the  back  of  the 
military  office  where  all  the  work  is  done, 
but    no    one  was   hurt.     When    I    got   to    the 


•ffjorse  tor  Dinner  125 

office,  at  8.30  a.m.,  Mackenzie  told  me  he 
had  been  fetched  out  to  see  a  girl  who  had 
been  killed  by  one.  She  had  been  in  one 
of  the  shellproof  pits,  and  came  out  and  was 
dressing  in  her  room,  thinking  that  the  danger 
was  over,  but  a  shell  came  along  and  burst, 
and  a  big  piece  of  it  struck  her  in  the  back, 
breaking  her  spine  and  almost  cutting  her 
in  half.  Fortunately  it  killed  her  instantly. 
This  was  the  only  casualty  that  day.  There 
were  heaps  of  hairbreadth  escapes,  but  no 
one  else   was  touched,  so  far  as  I  know. 

One  shell  went  through  Rudd's  house.  He 
is  the  son  of  C.  D.  Rudd,  who  has  been  asso- 
ciated with  Rhodes  very  much  in  some  of  his 
big  schemes.  He  took  his  family  away  when 
war  seemed  likely,  and  stored  a  good  deal  of 
his  furniture  in  one  room.  This  was  the  room 
into  which  the  shell  went,  and  it  made,  hay 
of  the  furniture.  Another  went  through  a 
patient's  house  into  a  bedroom  and  fell  under 
a  baby's  cot,  but  it  did  not  explode.  Another 
exploded  under  the  bed  \n  which  was  an 
Indian  woman  who  had  been  confined  only 
four  days.  It  burst  and  set  the  liedding  on 
fire,   l)ut    did    not   hurt    mother    or  child  ;    and 


126  3Be6iegeC»  bs  tbe  Mocvs 

another  came  into  the  same  house  later  in  the 
day  without  hurting  any  one.  Another  came 
through  the  chimney  of  a  patient's  house  and 
burst  upon  the  open  hearth,  and  the  woman 
herself  in  another  room  did  not  know  about 
it  till  a  neighbour  came  and  told  her.  There 
had  been  lots  of  shells  about  there,  and  the 
noise  did  not  seem  greater  than  that  of  some 
of  those  just  close  by. 

The  De  Beers  big  gun  kept  pounding  away 
in  answer  to  all  this,  but  was  only  one  against 
eight  or  nine,  and,  behig  quite  new,  the  men 
were  not  used  to  her,  and  could  not  do  much. 
We  heard  a  day  or  two  after  this  that  one 
of  her  shells  killed  three  Boers.  More  power 
to  her  !     I  wish  it  had  been  three  thousand. 

In  the  afternoon  I  usually  take  Agnes  out 
with  me  most  of  the  time,  so  I  told  her  I 
had  to  go  round  into  several  of  the  places 
where  the  shells  were  coming  pretty  thick,  and 
suggested  that  she  had  better  stay  at  home. 
She,  however,  is  very  plucky,  and  does  not 
worry  about  the  shells  a  bit,  so  she  said 
she  would  come  the  same  as  usual,  for  if  a 
shell  hit  me,  it  might  as  well  hit  her  too. 
We   went   along   all  round  and  did  the  work, 


tborse  tor  Binner  127 

but  several  shells  came  within  a  hundred 
yards  of  us.  Wherever  we  went  they  seemed 
to  follow  us  round. 

In  Beaconsfield,  the  gun  with  which  they 
are  trying  to  hit  Rhodes  and  the  Sanatorium 
dropped  a  shell  fairly  near  us,  and  we  picked 
a  big  chunk  of  it  up  in  the  main  road  a 
few  minutes  after,  still  hot.  This  gun  gives 
Beaconsfield,  and  the  main  road  leading  from 
Kimberley  past  the  Sanatorium  to  Beaconsfield, 
a  very  warm  time.  Several  shells  have  dropped 
into  the  main  road — one  just  in  front  of  a 
tram  full  of  people,  one  into  the  Sanatorium 
grounds,  one  right  over  it  and  through  the 
canteen  used  by  the  Volunteers  guarding  it — 
without  hurting  any  one.  One  went  through 
an  outhouse  on  Ruffel's  grounds.  (Mrs.  R. 
and  Katie  are  in  Cape  Town.)  Several  fell 
just  outside  the  hospital,  and  one  dropped  in 
the  Catholic  Orphanage  grounds. 

This  gun  kept  at  it  at  intervals  all  Wednes- 
day night,  and  some  of  the  others  chimed 
in  now  and  then.  We  went  to  bed  as  usual, 
for  our  special  guns  seemed  quiet,  and  we 
slept  till  about  4  a.m.  Then  something  woke 
me,  and  I  heard  two  shells  go  over  the  house, 


128  Bc9ieoc^  bp  tbe  Boers 

or  very  close  by,  and  burst  somewhere  quite 
near.  Our  house  faces  the  gun  that  fires  these 
shells,  so  we  concluded  that  downstairs  was 
better  than  upstairs,  I  took  our  mattresses 
down  into  the  hall  and  put  them  on  the  floor 
by  the  hatstand,  where  the  wall  is  thickest, 
and  was  just  going  to  turn  in  when  the 
Mayor  came  to  fetch  me  to  see  his  wife.  I 
went  along  to  his  house,  and  found  the  shells 
dropping  very  close  there,  but  fortunately  the 
patient  did  not  know  they  were  so  near, 
and  so  was  not  nervous.  The  Mayor  sent 
me  home  in  his  own  cart. 

At  my  door  I  found  a  policeman  who  wanted 
me  to  go  and  see  a  family  who  had  been 
smashed  up  by  a  shell.  I  drove  straight  off  to 
the  house  he  mentioned,  and  found  two  poor 
little  children  badly  hurt.  They  were  not  in 
their  own  house,  but  just  across  the  street 
where  they  had  been  carried.  One,  aged  six, 
had  his  shoulder  shattered  and  the  whole  side 
of  his  head  and  face  torn  open,  besides  other 
wounds ;  the  other,  a  year  or  two  younger, 
had  an  arm  and  a  leg  both  broken  badly, 
and  several  wounds  in  the  chest.  I  put  them 
both   into   the   cart   and  sent  them  straight  off 


fborse  for  ZDinner  129 

to  the  hospital,  and  was  then  told  that  the 
mother  was  in  her  own  house,  also  badly  hurt. 
I  went  across  and  found  her  lying  on  the 
floor  with  her  leg  wrapped  up  in  a  towel. 
An  ambulance  man  was  there,  who  said  he 
had  just  fastened  it  up  and  that  it  was  a 
beastly  wound.  I  sent  the  mounted  police- 
man for  the  ambulance  and  told  the  man 
to  bring  her  along  to  the  hospital  when 
the  ambulance  arrived.  Another  child  was 
just  grazed  with  a  splinter  of  the  shell. 

They  were  all  (mother  and  six  children) 
just  ready  to  begin  breakfast  when  the  shell 
came  and  burst  right  in  the  middle  of  them. 
The  father  is  a  Volunteer,  and  was  away  at 
one  of  the  camps.  It  is  queer  that  he  is  said 
to  be  a  prominent  member  of  the  Bond  and 
has  all  along  said  the  Boers  were  in  the  right. 
Whether  he  thinks  so  now,  I  don't  know. 

I  went  straight  off  to  the  hospital  and 
tackled  the  worst-hurt  child.  The  arm  was 
hopelessly  injured,  and  I  had  to  take  it 
off  at  the  shoulder  joint.  The  head  injury 
was  a  jagged  wound  from  above  and  behind 
the  ear  to  the  corner  of  the  mouth,  turning 
the    ear    down    on    to   the   neck,    breaking    the 

9 


I30  Besieged  b^  tbe  Boers 

jaw  in  two  places,  and  just  ploughing  up 
all  the  side  of  the  face.  There  was  also  a 
big  wound  on  the  other  arm,  and  a  fair-sized 
one  on  the  hip.  The  wonder  and  the  pity 
was  that  the  poor  little  chap  was  not  killed 
outright.  I  fixed  him  up  as  well  as  I  could, 
expecting  him  to  die  under  my  hands  all 
the  time,  but  he  lived  about  three  hours. 

Watkins  turned  up  while  I  was  busy  ; 
he  took  on  the  other  child,  and  I  turned  to, 
as  soon  as  I  was  free,  and  fixed  up  the  mother. 
She  had  all  the  fleshy  part  of  the  calf  ripped 
up  right  to  the  bone,  and  the  wound  went 
down  to  the  heel.  I  was  very  doubtful  whether 
I  ought  not  to  take  the  leg  off  there  and 
then,  but  there  seemed  a  possible  chance  of 
saving  it,  so  I  fixed  it  up  as  well  as  I  could 
and  awaited  developments.  She  was  a  rather 
flabby  individual  who  had  only  been  confined 
three  weeks,  so  the  developments  soon  turned 
up.  Forty-eight  hours  after,  the  leg  was 
beginning  to  go  gangrenous,  and  I  took  it  off 
above  the  knee.  To-day,  seventy-two  hours 
after,  she  is  better  than  she  has  been  yet,  but  is 
not  by  any  means  out  of  the  wood  yet.  And 
this  is  what  the  Boers  call  fair  play  ! 


Iborse  for  H)inner  131 

Of  the  previous  bombardment  their  com- 
mandant wrote  to  his  chiefs  that  he  directed 
his  guns  to  the  middle  of  the  town  to  do  as 
much  damage  as  possible,  and  this  is  their 
aim  again  now.  They  must  know  that  almost 
all  the  men  are  in  the  forts,  and  that  very 
few  people  except  women  and  children  are 
left  in  the  town,  and  yet  they  fire,  not  at  the 
forts,  but  into  the  town.  I  have  no  doubt 
they  will  say  they  fired  at  the  forts  and  their 
shells  went  too  far,  but  we  shall  not  believe 
that. 

All  that  day  the  shelling  went  on  until 
about  9.30  p.m.,  and  since  then  we  have  had 
practically  none.  Twice  that  afternoon  I  very 
narrowly  escaped  a  shell.  At  one  house  I 
called  at,  I  was  talking  on  the  verandah  for 
some  time,  and  within  twenty  minutes  of  that  a 
shell  fell  into  the  garden  between  the  verandah 
and  the  road,  not  ten  feet  from  where  I  had 
been  ;  and  again,  I  hud  just  gone  across  to 
the  Market  Square  at  Beaconsfield  and  got 
to  the  corner,  when  a  shell  fell  just  where  I 
had  crossed  not  one  minute  before. 

No  one  can  imagine  the  relief  it  was  when 
the    shelling    ceased.       It    is    not    altogether    a 


132  BeeieGcD  b^  tbe  JBoers 

question  of  fear,  but  the  knowledge  that 
wherever  you  are,  a  shell  may  drop  on  you 
at  any  moment,  and  that  you  have  to  do 
your  work,  all  the  same,  does  not  much  ex- 
hilarate you.  I  suppose  if  a  doctor  gets  killed 
on  duty,  his  patients  will  promptly  say  what 
a  fool  he  was  to  come  out,  but  if  he  stays 
at  home,  they  say  he  is  a  cowardly  cur  for 
doing  so.  Any  stick  is  good  enough  to  whack 
a  doctor  with. 

To-day  (Sunday)  I  don't  think  a  shot  has 
been  fired  on  either  side,  but  there  are  heaps 
of  rumours  as  to  what  is  in  store  for  us  to- 
morrow. More  guns,  bigger  guns,  and  closer 
to  us,  is  what  most  of  the  rumours  amount  to, 
but  no  one  will  know  whether  there  is  any  truth 
in  them  till  to-morrow.  Nearly  all  the  town 
has  been  busy  building  shellproof  shelters,  but 
we  have  decided  not  to  do  so.  Our  house 
is  pretty  solid,  and  unless  they  bring  very 
big  guns  to  bear  upon  us,  we  are  only  liable 
to  be  reached  by  the  shells  that  come  from 
the  long  side  of  the  house,  in  the  direction  in 
which  most  of  the  windows  face.  If  we  keep 
in  the  bottom  story  and  in  the  hall,  I  do 
not  think  we  can  be  damaged.     All  the  shells 


Iborse  tot  Winnct  133 

that  have  burst,  did  it  in  the  first  room  they 
came  to,  and  the  pieces  only  went  through  into 
the  second  if  the  wall  was  very  flimsy.  Our 
walls  are  good  and  solid,  so  I  think  we  should 
be  pretty  well  all  right  in  the  hall,  either 
where  the  bookcase  is  or  at  the  other  end 
by  the  hatstand. 

The  shellproof  places  are  ghastly  little 
dog-holes — like  the  Black  Hole  of  Calcutta 
in  most  cases.  Some  of  the  rich  people  have 
put  up  good  ones,  double  layers  of  sand-bags 
built  up  on  their  verandahs  to  a  decent 
height,  and  roofed  either  with  sheet  steel  or 
old  railway  iron  or  thick  deals  with  plenty  of 
sandbags  on  the  top  of  them  ;  and  in  these 
there  has  been  some  attempt  at  ventilation  ; 
but  the  poorer  people  have  dug  holes  in 
their  yards  or  gardens  and  roofed  them  with 
anything  that  came  handy,  and  then  either 
just  sandbags  or  the  loose  earth  out  of  the 
hole  was  put  on  top.  In  these  you  can't 
stand  up,  and  there  is  no  ventilation  at  all, 
so  I  guess  they  would  be  about  as  deadly  as 
the  Boer  shells  ;  but  lots  of  people  seem  to 
find  comfort  in  being  in  them.  One  woman 
I  know  fled  into  hers  early  on  the  Wednesday 


134  3Besieoe&  b^  tbe  Boers 

morning,  and  never  came  out  till  late  Friday 
afternoon  ;  but  she  is  the  one  who  had  a 
shell  through  her  house  in  the  first  bombard- 
ment (and  who  gave  us  a  piece  of  it),  so 
she  was  likely  to  be  timid. 


CHAPTER    VIII 

OUR    BIG    GUN,    AND    THE    BOERS' 
BIGGER    ONE 

NOW,  having  finished  about  the  bombard- 
ment whilst  it  was  fresh  in  my  mind, 
I  must  hark  back  and  tell  you  about  the  De 
Beers  gun.  We  had  heard  rumours  that  a 
big  gun  was  being  made  for  some  time  before 
the  second  bombardment,  and  we  soon  heard 
from  the  men  at  the  De  Beers  machine  shops 
that  it  was  true.  I  did  not  go  down  to  see 
it  until  it  was  nearly  done  ;  but  I  looked  in 
a  few  days  before  it  was  completed,  and  took 
Agnes  down  next  day,  as  she  was  interested 
in  it.  The  gun  has  since  been  christened 
"  Long  Cecil,"  but  many  of  us  prefer  other 
names  for  it  ;  my  favourite  is  "  The  De  Beers 
Baby,"  but  another  good  one  is  "St.  Cecilia." 
It  is  a  splendid  piece  of  work,  especially 
when    you    consider    that    many    of    the    tools 

135 


136  3Besieoc^  b^  tbe  Boers 

necessary  to  do  the  rifling  and  other  com- 
plicated work  had  to  be  made  in  the  shops, 
and  that  the  men  were  not  used  to  the  work, 
and  that  even  the  material  used  was  only,  so 
to  speak,  makeshift.  The  gun  is  about  ten 
feet  long,  and  is  built  upon  the  "  Woolwich 
Infant "  principle — slender  near  the  muzzle, 
thicker  in  the  middle,  and  very  much  thicker 
at  the  breech.  The  narrow  part  is  about  nine 
or  ten  inches  through,  and  the  thickest  part 
at  the  breech  about  twenty  or  so.  The  shell 
it  carries  is  4*1  inches  in  diameter,  and  weighs 
twenty-eight  and  a  half  pounds,  so  if  it  drops 
on  a  Boer's  head,  he  will  probably  know 
about  it.  Of  course  a  proper  gun-carriage 
and  everything  complete  was  made  at  the 
same  time,  and  at  last  all  was  in  order. 
There  was  great  speculation  as  to  what  would 
happen  the  first  time  the  gun  was  fired,  but 
all  the  people  principally  concerned  were  con- 
fident he  would  be  all  right,  and  so  he  was. 

They  took  him  out  of  the  shop  on  the 
morning  of  January  19th,  and  pointed  him  at 
the  midway  pumping-station,  half-way  from 
here  to  Riverton,  about  six  thousand  five 
hundred  yards  from  where  he  was  fired,  and  let 


©Ill*  JBia  Own,  aii&  tbe  Boecs'  :Bioaci*  ©ite  137 

him  go.  To  everybody's  delight,  he  reached 
it  quite  easily.  The  Boers  have  had  a  big 
camp  there  all  the  time,  as  it  was  out  of 
reach  of  our  other  guns,  and  there  were  good 
buildings  and  plenty  of  water  there.  After 
a  few  shells  had  been  dropped  pretty  close, 
the  Boers  were  seen  to  be  buzzing  about  and 
departing  like  a  hive  of  bees  when  a  brick 
is  thrown  into  it.  A  few  days  afterwards, 
our  men  caught  a  Dutch  despatch-rider,  and 
on  him  was  a  letter  from  a  Boer  to  his  home 
people,  describing  their  consternation  when 
the  shells  began  to  drop  about  them  as  they 
were  at  breakfast.  They  just  got  up  and 
scooted,  leaving  their  breakfasts  behind. 

The  gun  did  very  good  shooting  that  day, 
but  they  took  him  back  to  the  shop  to  make 
the  powder-chamber  larger,  so  that  it  would 
hold  seven  pounds  of  powder  instead  of  five 
and  a  half,  and  so  increase  his  range  ;  but  some- 
how this  did  not  seem  to  improve  his  shooting, 
and  triough  he  has  done  good  work  during 
the  bombardment,  the  men  seem  to  think  he 
is  not  so  accurate  as  before. 

On  the  same  day  that  the  gun  was  tried,  I 
see  in   my  diary  that  we  had  a  new  vegetable 


138  McsicQC^  b^  the  iBoers 

issued  to  us — the  common  or  household 
mangel-wurzel.  Horseflesh  and  wurzel  do 
not  sound  luxurious,  but  they  would  be  all 
right  if  there  were  only  plenty  of  them.  The 
wurzels  are  the  Globe  yellow  sort,  and  are  very 
good,  not  to  be  distinguished  from  beet  except 
by  the  colour. 

February  2nd. — Thank  goodness,  the  ex- 
pected heavy  bombardment  has  not  come  off. 
Every  day  a  few  shells  have  dropped  in,  but 
only  a  very  few — most  days  only  three  or  four — 
so  we  have  had  quite  a  holiday.  "  Long  Cecil" 
fired  one  shot  early  on  Monday  and  no  more, 
and  later  on  we  learned  that  he  busted  some- 
thing with  that  shot  and  had  to  go  back  to 
the  shop  again.  He  was  to  have  been  all 
right  again  to-day,  but  has  not  been  fired,  so 
perhaps  he  is  still  out  of  gear. 

All  this  time  I  have  been  wanting  to  send 
you  some  money,  as  I  am  afraid  you  will  be 
hard  up.  I  kept  waiting  and  waiting,  hoping 
that  we  should  get  communication,  but  early 
in  January  I  thought  I  would  wait  no  more. 
I  went  to  the  bank  and  got  a  draft  in  dupli- 
cate just  in  the  usual  way,  and  then  I  got  the 
military  people    to    let   me  send  the  duplicate 


®ur  BiQ  Own,  anb  tbe  Boers'  JSiGger  ©ne   139 

drafts  off  by  their  despatch-riders,  with  a  short 
letter,  on  two  different  nights,  hoping  that 
at  least  one  of  them  would  manage  to  get 
through.  About  a  week  after  this,  the  banks 
made  an  arrangement  by  which  the  military 
would  flash  money  to  the  column,  and  so  on 
to  Cape  Town,  by  the  searchlight.  So  then 
I  wished  I  had  waited  a  little  longer. 

About  a  month  afterwards,  the  military  told 
me  that  neither  of  the  despatch-riders  had  got 
through,  and  neither  of  them  had  returned, 
so  they  were  'either  dead  or  prisoners.  This 
was  cheerful,  for  my  drafts  were  probably  in 
the  hands  of  the  Boers.  I  don't  think  it  likely 
that  any  one  else  but  you  could  get  the  money, 
for  the  London  bank  has  always  had  your 
draft  come  to  them  through  the  same  channel 
all  these  years,  so  they  would  be  suspicious  if 
it  came  into  their  hands  in  any  other  way, 
especially  at  these  times.  They  know  your 
signature,  too,  and  therefore  there  would  be 
little  risk,  unless  they  really  were  criminally 
careless.  All  the  same,  as  we  could  get  com- 
munication, I  thought  it  wiser  to  stop  that 
draft  by  cable  from  Cape  Town,  and  to  tell 
the    Cape    Town    bank   to    post    another    draft 


I40  Bc5icoe5  b^  tbc  Boers 

to  you.  This  was  on  January  26th,  and  next 
day  I  cabled  to  you  that  we  were  safe  and 
well.  I  expected  you  would  know  in  England 
that  we  were  heavily  bombarded  on  the  25th 
and  26th,  so  I  thought  that  you  had  better 
know  that  we  were  all  right  after  it  all.  I 
have  sent  off  several  wires  to  you,  since  the 
siege  began,  at  intervals  of  three  or  four  weeks, 
but  have  no  means  of  knowing  whether  any 
of  them  got  through   or   not. 

February  4///. — To-day  we  have  had  a  new 
sort  of  food,  donkey-  instead  of  horse-flesh. 
The  butcher  who  serves  me  always  delights 
in  trying  to  harrow  up  my  feelings  by  telling 
me  what  the  meat  is,  but  I  guess  he  will  soon 
give  up,  for  I  always  say :  "  All  right,  as  long 
as  it  is  meat,  it  is  all  the  same  to  me."  A 
few  days  ago  my  driver  told  me  that  a  China- 
man had  been  offering  Mackenzie's  driver  a 
good  price  for  cats,  which  he  wanted  to  eat — 
five  shillings  and  sixpence  for  small  ones  and 
twelve-and-six  for  large  ones.  We  have  not 
come  to  that  yet,  but  the  Chinese  are  fond 
of  cats  at  all  times. 

The  bread  ration  in  town  has  been  cut 
down  -within  the  last  few   days.      Previously  it 


®ur  3Big  Gun,  anD  tbe  Boers'  JSicocr  ®ne   mi 

was  fourteen  ounces  per  head,  now  it  is  only 
ten  and  a  half,  so  stores  have  to  be  husbanded 
a  good  deal.  For  the  last  few  weeks  we 
doctors,  or  rather  the  careful  and  conscientious 
ones  of  us,  have  been  having  an  awful  time 
with  food  permits.  The  regular  rations  issued 
consist  of  bread,  horseflesh  or  beef,  mealie 
meal,  and  crushed  mealies,  with  vegetables 
about  once  in  ten  days,  and  tea  or  coffee  and 
sugar.  For  the  last  {iiw  weeks  nothing  more 
of  any  description  is  allowed  to  be  sold  without 
a  doctor's  written  order. 

The  doctors  all  have  orders  not  to  give 
permits  except  in  cases  where  the  people  are 
sick,  and  then  only  in  very  moderate  quantities. 
As  I  have  told  you  before,  every  patient  you 
have  ever  seen  comes  up  and  demands  a  permit 
for  something,  many  of  them  being  manifestly 
in  robust  health.  The  usual  story  is  :  "I 
won't  eat  horseflesh,  and  so  I  must  have 
something  else."  My  answer  to  these  people 
has  invariably  been  :  "Our  orders  are  that 
we  are  not  in  any  way  to  help  people  who 
refuse  to  eat  horseflesh,  therefore  you  can  wait 
till  you  are  hungry  enough  to  eat  it,  or  you 
can  starve.      You  will  get  no  permit  from  me." 


142  JSesiegeD  b\?  tbc  Boers 

The  fat  Jews,  who  have  always  lived  on 
the  best  of  everything,  naturally  do  not  like 
this,  and  so  they  go  off  to  some  other  man 
they  can  bully,  blarney,  or  bribe,  and  get 
whatever  they  choose  to  ask  for,  cursing  me 
fluently  all  the  time.  They  say  their  religion 
forbids  them  to  eat  horse,  so  as  a  rule  they 
ask  for  bacon. 

Some  of  the  doctors  are  notorious  for 
giving  permits  for  anything  to  anybody.  I 
am  afraid  I  am  notorious  in  the  other  way, 
having  the  reputation  of  giving  '^  nothink  to 
nobody,"  and  consequently  am  not  particu- 
larly beloved.  However,  I  have  done  the 
square  thing,  and  none  of  my  sick  people 
have  had  any  reasonable  request  refused ; 
but  the  loafers  and  guzzlers  have  had  a  bad 
time  at  my  hands.  None  of  this  bother 
would  have  arisen  if  the  Army  doctor,  who 
is  really  responsible  for  the  proper  issue  of 
the  medical  comforts,  had  been  a  man  of 
grit ;  but  though  a  nice  enough  fellow,  he 
has  no  backbone,  and  is  too  fond  of  red 
tape  and  sealing-wax.  If  he  had  gone  into 
things  a  bit,  he  would  easily  have  found  out 
the  offending  men  ;  and  then,  if  he  had  been 


(S>ur  :B\q  (3un,  anD  tbe  Boers'  "BiQQcv  ®ne   143 

the  right  sort,  he  would  have  got  the  colonel 
to  give  him  a  free  hand,  and  then  would  have 
gone  to  each  offender,  and  talked  like  this  : 
"  Look    here,    my    child,   you  are   not   playing 


MEDICAL  COMFORT  CERTIFICATE. 

Date.?!^rif\f?r^r^ /^..':  1900. 

Please  Supply    

Name  (in  full)  ^^}/p&.?k?:r>..S?1^*iyf^ 

Address  /"^ /.  f^ThJ^yi^^^^h^ir^ .  .&^^<rc^(. 

With  l:^..PSf(^^/:)^i^^  

Nature  of  Complaint 


Signature  of  Doctor  , 
Conntersigned 


N.B. — Tfiis  certificate  must  be  cuuntersigued  at  the  Office  in 
Cbapel-street  (back  of  Wliite's  Hair<lrci?8ing  Es^tablishment,  Dn- 
toitsjiaii  Koad),  between  the  hours  of  10  am.  acd  12  noon,  and 
from  4  p.m  to  6  p.m.,  aod  not  taken  to  Leunox-street. 


FACSIMILE    OF    MEDICAL    COMFORT    CERTIFICATE. 

the  game.  I  give  you  fair  warning  that  if 
you  don't  draw  in  your  horns,  I  will  refuse 
to  recognise  your  signature  on  any  permit, 
and  don't  you  forget  it."  I'hat  is  the  sort 
of  yarn  I  would  have  reeled  off  to  them,  and 


T44  BesieocD  bv  tbe  JSoers 

1  would  have  run  the  permit  business  satis- 
factorily inside  a  week  if  I  had  been  re- 
sponsible ;  but  he  is  too  mild,  and  the  colonel 
is  too   busy  to   tackle  the  job  in  earnest. 

At  last,  about  a  week  ago,  the  Food  Supply 
Committee  struck  over  the  business,  and  told 
the  colonel  that  this  permit  system  was  being 
scandalously  abused,  as  the  comforts  meant 
for  the  sick  were  being  frittered  away  on 
perfectly  healthy  and  strong  people.  The 
colonel  appointed  a  committee  to  inquire  into 
it,  and  both  Mackenzie  and  1  were  members 
of  it.  I  had  on  several  occasions  worried  the 
colonel  myself,  so  he  knew  I  was  interested 
in  it. 

We  devised  a  stringent  system  of  issuing 
permits  and  their  supervision,  which  I  hope 
will  work  much  better,  but  the  supervisor 
is  hopeless  ;  he  seems  absolutely  to  have  no 
savvy  whatever.  For  instance,  one  rule  is 
that  no  patient  shall  draw  more  than  one 
comfort,  except  in  cases  of  urgent  need,  and 
these  cases  must  have  a  written  explanation 
of  the  urgency  of  their  need  on  the  back 
of  their  permit.  The  sensible  way  seems  to 
me     to     be    this  :     issue    one    of    the    things 


©ur  Mq  (5un,  an^  tbe  Boers'  Bicjoer  One   145 

ordered  at  once,  and  go  down  to  the  patient's 
house  and  satisfy  yourself  that  the  others 
are  really  required  before  issuing  them.  But 
Mr.  Wronghead  says  issue  all  the  things  at 
once,  and  then  go  and  see  if  they  were  really 
needed.  As  if  either  doctor  or  patient  would 
care  what  happened,  as  long  as  the  things 
were  got.  I  did  get  a  penal  clause  put  into 
the  rules,  providing  that  any  doctor  not  acting 
up  to  them  should,  at  the  discretion  of  the 
colonel,  forfeit  his  right  to  sign  permits, 
but  I  am  afraid  it  won't  be  acted  up  to. 
These  rules  were  just  a  month  too  late — in 
fact,  on  the  first  day  they  were  in  force  the 
last  tin  of  butter  in  the  town  was  issued,  and 
if  it  had  been  taken  proper  care  of,  and  only 
issued  to  the  sick,  there  would  have  been 
enough  to  last  us  through  the  siege. 

After  February  4th  things  jogged  along 
quietly  until  the  7th.  On  that  morning  I 
was  called  to  a  confinement  in  one  of  the 
outlying  parts  of  the  town,  rather  near  one 
part  of  the  Boer  lines.  Whilst  there,  in 
addition  to  the  usual  intermittent  shelling  with 
both  our  and  the  Boer  guns,  I  heard  a  much 
bigger    gun    begin.      There   was    a    big    boom, 

10 


146  JBcsiCQCb  bi?  tbe  Boers 

then  a  tremendous  whiz  somewhere  over  or 
near  the  house  I  was  in,  and  then,  by-and-by, 
a  good  big  boom  when  the  shell  burst.  I  was 
pleased  at  this,  as  I  thought  this  was  "  Long 
Cecil "  potting  at  the  Boers  at  Carter's  Farm, 
so  I  felt  comfortable  and  happy.  When  I 
came  out  after  it  was  all  over,  my  driver, 
Daniel,  looked  pretty  sick,  and  said  :  "  The 
Boers  have  got  a  big  gun  at  Kamfersdam, 
and  are  firing  into  the  town  with  it."  And 
so  it  was.  He  said  the  shells  were  falling 
near  the  Market  Square,  across  which  I  wanted 
to  go. 

This  looked  cheerful,  but  I  had  to  go  up 
town,  so  we  drove  off.  When  we  nearly  got 
to  the  Square,  we  heard  a  shell  bump  into 
something  fairly  close  to  us,  but  we  did  not 
stay  to  inquire.  Later  on  I  found  out  that  this 
shell  had  dropped  into  a  house  on  the  left 
side  of  the  street,  and  a  big  piece  of  it  flew 
across  the  road  and  killed  a  horse  in  a  shoeing 
forge  on  the  right  side  of  the  street,  less  than 
a  hundred  yards  behind  me.  If  I  had  been 
coming  up  about  one  minute  later,  that  piece 
might  quite  easily  have  got  me. 

A   piece  of  the   same    shell  flew  diagonally 


©ur  Bia  6un,  an^  tbe  Boers'  JBiQQCt  One   ui 

through  an  open  window  in  the  De  Beers 
office  at  which  a  friend  of  mine  was  sitting.  It 
went  past  him  without  touching  him,  struck  an 
iron  safe,  bounced  off  that  to  the  wall,  and  from 
there  into  the  fireplace,  where  it  stopped.  The 
piece  weighed  eleven  pounds,  and  my  friend 
departed  without  waiting  to  put  on  his  hat, 
and  had  three  drinks  one  after  the  other 
before  he  began  to  feel  better. 

The  gun  kept  on  firing  until  midday,  when 
it  stopped  to  cool  and  let  the  Boers  have 
dinner,  but  it  started  out  again  about  three  in 
the  afternoon,  and  went  at  it  hot  and  strong. 
About  four  I  was  at  Ruffel's,  calling  for 
messages,  and  heard  a  big  shell  come  over  and 
burst  not  very  far  away,  and  then  I  came  down 
to  the  house  for  tea.  When  I  got  near,  I  saw 
a  lot  of  people  rushing  up  the  lane  along  the 
long  side  of  the  house,  and  I  found  that  the 
shell  had  landed  in  our  next-door  neighbour's 
stable.  There  was  a  very  sulphury  smell  in  the 
air  and  a  big  cloud  of  dust,  but  our  house 
seemed  to  be  all  right.  I  rushed  indoors  and 
called  for  Agnes,  and  she  answered  that  she 
was  all  right,  neither  of  the  servants  hurt, 
and  the  house  untouched. 


148  BC5iC(}CD  b\?  tbc  BOCfS 

Agnes  was  upstairs  putting  on  her  hat  to 
come  out  with  me  when  she  heard  the  shell 
whiz  and  explode,  and  saw  the  whole  stable 
roof  lift  up.  Fortunately  the  shell  fell  in  soft 
ground  and  went  in  some  way  before  it  burst, 
so  the  pieces  did  not  fly  about,  and  beyond 
wrecking  the  building,  no  damage  was  done. 
Our  house  was  filled  with  dust  and  smoke, 
and  sphnters  of  wood  and  roofing  flew  over 
into  our  garden.  A  few  fair-sized  stones  came 
over  too — one  weighing  about  six  pounds — and 
two  whole  sheets  of  galvanized  iron  :  one  fell 
on  our  beetroot  bed,  and  the  other  cut  the 
cord  of  the  verandah  blind  and  notched  the 
verandah  rail. 

Our  domestic  took  shelter  under  her  bed, 
but  was  unearthed,  unhurt,  without  difiiculty. 
Agnes  was  ready  to  go  out  with  me,  so  I 
took  her,  as  she  did  not  feel  safe  in  the 
house.  Up  to  this  time  she  had  stood  the 
shelling  splendidly,  but  this  was  coming  a  bit 
too  close  to  be  pleasant,  and  rather  took  the 
curl  out  of  us  both.  Whilst  we  were  on  our 
rounds,  we  went  into  Rufi^el's  branch  shop 
near  the  station,  and  a  piece  of  shell  had  just 
dropped   through   the    roof  there,  which  they 


lOO-I.H.     I40KK    SIIKLI..  y-l,U.     UK    UKKK    SIIKI.I.. 

(From  a  filmlogiafih  liy  /'".  //.  Hancox.) 


®ur  IBiQ  6un,  anD  tf3e  Boevs'  IBigQCV  ®ne   149 

showed  us.  It  was  a  solid  piece  of  about 
eight  pounds  weight  and  an  inch  and  a  half 
thick,  and  showed  us  a  little  what  these  shells 
were  like. 

Later  on  (they  were  shelling  all  the  time) 
we  had  to  go  into  the  De  Beers  workshops, 
and  there  we  found  one  of  the  big  shells 
which  had  not  exploded.  It  had  fallen  out 
on  the  veldt  at  the  back  of  the  hospital. 
The  people  who  picked  it  up  took  it  to 
Rhodes,  who  gave  them  five  pounds  for  it. 
He  sent  it  down  to  the  shops  to  have  the 
powder  taken  out  of  it  and  to  get  it  polished 
up.  Down  there  they  handled  it  very  gingerly, 
for  only  a  few  weeks  before  we  had  had  news 
from  Mafeking  of  a  blacksmith  trying  to  open 
a  similar  shell  when  it  exploded,  blew  off  one 
of  his  legs  and  one  of  another  man's,  and 
killed  a  third  man,  so  they  had  good  reason 
to  be  careful,  and  accordingly  let  it  soak  in 
water  for  a  few  hours. 

My  driver  had  seen  one  of  the  men  who 
picked  this  shell  up,  and  told  me  he  had  said  it 
was  as  big  as  the  handbag  that  I  carry  instru- 
ments about  in.  Seeing  that  this  came  from 
a    coloured   man,   of  course    1    did   not    believe 


ISO  Be8iege&  b\?  tbc  Boers 

it,  but  it  was  under,  ratlicr  than  over,  the 
truth.  This  infernal  shell  was  eighteen  and 
a  half  inches  long  and  six  inches  in  diameter 
at  the  base,  and  weighed  eighty-seven  pounds. 
We  found  later  that  the  shells  were  not  very 
accurately  made,  many  of  them  being  twenty 
inches  long  and  weighing  over  one  hundred 
pounds.  As  you  can  imagine,  the  sight  of 
this  shell  did  not  encourage  us,  for  we  knew 
that  a  gun  big  enough  to  carry  this  shell 
could  reach  any  part  of  Kimberley  or  Beacons- 
field,  so  that  there  was  no  possibility  of 
getting  out  of  its  range,  and  we  also  saw 
that  there  was  no  building  in  Kimberley, 
except  perhaps  the  strong-rooms  at  the  banks, 
that  would   not  be   penetrated   easily  by  it. 

Fortunately  the  gun  was  fired  from  a  place 
almost  directly  opposite  the  front  door  end 
of  our  house,  so  if  we  kept  either  in  the 
little  passage  at  the  back  of  the  dining-room 
or,  better  still,  in  the  covered  way  between 
the  house  and  the  kitchen  block,  we  should  be 
fairly  safe,  for  we  had  come  to  know  from 
experience  that  a  shell  is  usually  exploded 
by  the  first  wall  it  touches,  but  that  it  has 
sufficient    impetus    to     carry    it    through    that 


®ur  Big  Gun,  anC)  tbe  Boers'  Bigger  ®ne   151 

wall,  and  actually  bursts  in  the  first  room  it 
comes  into.  Coming  from  the  direction  they 
did,  these  shells  would  have  to  come  through 
at  least  two  pretty  solid  walls  before  they 
reached  the  other  end  of  the  house,  so  we 
felt  fairly  safe.  The  shelling  went  on  until 
about  dark,  and  then  stopped,  greatly  to  our 
relief.  The  damage  done  was  not  great  ;  two 
men  were  hurt  by  splinters  of  wood,  and  a 
child  was  more  seriously  hurt  and  subsequently 
died,  not  exactly  from  the  shell  wound,  but 
undoubtedly  that  helped. 

Next  morning  we  expected  to  be  roused  out 
quite  early  by  the  big  gun,  but  to  our  great 
delight  it  did  not  start,  so  as  the  day  crept 
on  all  sorts  of  rumours  began  to  fly  about, 
principally  that  "  Long  Cecil,"  who  had  been 
pounding  away  manfully  at  this  Boer  gun  all 
the  previous  day,  had  smashed  it  up. 

When  lunch-time  came  and  no  big  gun,  we 
began  to  feel  quite  cheerful,  but  about  four 
o'clock  they  began  again,  and  for  some  time 
heaved  a  shell  into  us  every  two  minutes,  but 
they  could  not  keep  that  up  long,  as  of  course 
the  gun  got  hot  and  had  to  cool  off.  One  of 
the  early  shells  burst  in  the  air,  and  a  piece  of 


152  3Besiecjc^  bv?  tbc  ^Bocrs 

it  dropped  through  a  roof  near  the  bank  and 
knocked  a  man's  brains  out,  killing  him  on  the 
spot.  Another  came  through  a  photographer's 
opposite  the  club  and  burst  on  the  pavement, 
and  fragments  of  it  flew  on  to  the  club 
verandah  and  out  at  the  side,  one  of  them 
rising  high  again  and  knocking  the  cross  off  the 
end  of  the  Catholic  Church  at  the  side  of  the 
club.  A  patient  of  mine  got  a  chunk  of  this 
in  his  leg  as  he  stood  at  the  club.  Just  where 
the  shell  came  through  the  photographer's  wall, 
a  big  portrait  of  Rhodes  hung,  and  the  shell 
landed  squarely  in  the  middle  of  this  and 
knocked  it  into  smithereens.  A  little  later 
on  another  shell  dropped  into  a  big  shop  next 
door  to  S.'s  and  set  fire  to  it.  The  whole  place 
burnt  down,  and  S.'s  place  caught  fire,  but 
they  managed  to  put  it  out. 

When  this  happened,  I  had  only  just  left  S.'s 
private  house,  where  I  was  seeing  Mrs.  S.,  who 
was  ill.  S.  and  I  had  been  joking  (we  had  to 
joke  to  keep  up  our  spirits)  about  the  shells, 
and  he  had  asked  me  to  give  him  some 
medicine  to  make  his  knees  feel  stronger  when 
the  gun  went  off,  and  the  next  minute  his  shop 
was  nearly  destroyed. 


CHAPTER    IX 

THE    RUSH    FOR    SHELTER 

AGNES  still  declared  she  did  not  want  a 
shelter  made  on  our  premises,  but  I 
could  see  she  was  a  good  deal  shaken  by 
these  infernal  shells,  so  I  went  to  Gardner 
Williams  and  asked  him  to  let  me  have  timber 
and  iron  from  the  De  Beers  stores,  and  a 
white  overseer  and  some  natives  to  build  me 
a  fort.  He  was  very  good,  and  consented 
at  once.  I  felt  sure  Agnes  would  feel  happier 
with  a  shelter,  and  we  neither  of  us  felt  safe 
sleeping  upstairs,  when  the  gun  was  liable 
to  fire  at  any  moment,  and  the  first  shell 
might  be  the  very  one  to  drop  on  us,  so 
we  thought  if  we  got  a  fort,  we  would  sleep 
all  night  in  it  and  not  have  to  turn  out  first 
thing  directly   the  gun   went. 

On  this  second  day  of  the  big  gun  a  system 
of  signalling  was  established  which  was  a  great 

152 


154  JSesicGcD  bv?  tbc  :Boers 

help  to  us.  The  gun  was  firing  ordinary 
powder  and  not  cordite,  and  so  made  a  big 
puff"  of  smoke.  This  could  easily  be  seen 
from  the  conning  tower  and  other  prominent 
positions  in  the  forts.  Directly  the  look-out 
on  the  conning  tower  saw  the  puff",  he  waved 
a  red  flag,  and  a  bugler  standing  by  him 
blew  the  alarm.  The  gun  was  about  three 
and  a  half  miles  from  us,  so  there  was  an 
appreciable  interval  between  the  puff"  of  smoke 
and  the  arrival  of  the  shell.  If  the  bugler 
got  his  little  tune  off^  smart,  there  was  about 
fifteen  seconds,  and  this  gave  you  plenty  of 
time  to  dodge  under  a  wall  or  put  up  your 
umbrella  (one  man  was  actually  seen  to  do 
this)  or  rush  into  your  fort,  but  often  the 
interval  was  much  less. 

At  the  Sanatorium  there  was  a  look-out 
station  on  the  roof,  from  which  the  puff"  of 
smoke  could  be  seen,  and  the  look-out  there 
banged  on  the  dinner-gong  for  all  he  was 
worth  directly  he  saw  it.  I  thought  Rhodes 
was  having  plenty  of  meals  when  I  heard  the 
gong  going  so  often,  until  I  found  out  that 
it  was  a  shell  signal. 

At    another    place    the    look-out    hammered 


XTbe  IRusb  tor  Sbelter  155 

one  iron  bar  on  another  which  was  hung  up 
by  the  end.  This  is  a  cheap  sort  of  bell 
which  is  common  in  this  country,  and  can  be 
heard  a  long  way.  From  many  places  people 
could  see  the  red  flag  wave,  though  they 
did  not  hear  the  alarms.  In  front  of  the 
Town  Hall  a  policeman  was  stationed  in  an 
auctioneer's  pulpit  to  blow  his  whistle  when 
he  saw  it.  On  the  whole,  we  had  heaps  of 
music  these  days. 

Next  day  (February  9th)  was  about  the 
worst  of  all,  as  they  pumped  shells  into  us 
almost  all  day,  only  stopping  for  refreshments 
or  to  cool  the  gun.  They  began  about  6  a.m. 
and  went  on  till  dark.  About  nine  a  shell  went 
into  a  house  near  the  station,  killing  a  baby 
in  its  mother's  arms  and  badly  damaging  the 
mother,  ripping  open  one  breast,  blowing  off 
part  of  a  hand,  and  scratching  and  bruising 
her  neck  and  chest,  and  fracturing  her  skull. 
At  first  she  did  well,  but  took  a  wrong  turn 
about  thirty  hours  after,  and  was  dead  in 
thirty-six. 

Another  shell  went  through  a  store  close 
behind  me  when  I  was  seeing  patients  at  the 
oflice,  and   scattered   pieces  on    the  roof  above 


is6  JScsicoe^  b\?  tbc  Boers 

my  head  ;  but  I  sat  tight,  and  went  on  with 
the  prescription  I  was  writing.  All  the  same, 
I  was  badly  scared,  for  it  is  not  nice  to  know 
that  the  last  shells  have  fallen  somewhere  near 
you,  and  to  hear  the  bugle  go,  and  then  go 
quietly  on  with  what  you  are  doing,  with  your 
ears  pricked  up  for  the  boom  of  the  gun  and 
the  whiz,  wondering  all  the  time  whether  this 
is  the  one  that  is  going  to  get  you  or  not. 
When  you  hear  the  shell  bump  into  some 
other  building  and  burst  with  a  crash,  you 
are  happy  at  once,  for  you  know  you  have 
got  off  once  more. 

We  soon  ;  found  that  if  the  shells  burst 
in  a  building,  the  pieces  were  stopped  and 
could  not  fly  ;  but  if  the  shell  burst  in  the 
air,  or  struck  hard  rock  or  road,  they  flew 
in  a  fearful  manner,  some  of  them  going 
hundreds  of  yards,  buzzing  like  a  steam-saw 
all  the  time.  These  pieces  were  far  more 
dangerous  than  the  shell  itself,  and  we  did  not 
like  them  a  bit.  A  fair  proportion  of  the 
shells  did  not  explode;  either  because  they 
were  bad  or  because,  as  they  were  fired  at 
a  very  short  range  for  so  big  a  gun,  they 
struck  on  their  sides  and  not  on  their  points. 


XTbe  IRusb  for  Sbelter  157 

Some  of  them  ricochetted  off  hard  ground, 
and  went  half  a  mile  before  dropping  again. 
The  pieces  sometimes  weighed  fifteen  to  twenty 
pounds,  but  more  usually  were  from  two  to 
ten — and  these  were  quite  big  enough. 

By-and-by  we  found  that  there  was  a  certain 
sort  of  method  in  the  firing.  They  would 
point  the  gun  at  some  particular  object — the 
Town  Hall  and  the  conning  tower  being 
the  favourite  ones — and  fire  eight  or  ten  shots 
till  the  gun  was  hot.  Then  they  would  point 
it  somewhere  else  for  eight  or  ten  shots,  and 
so  on.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  their  marksman- 
ship was  disgraceful  ;  I  don't  think  they  once 
hit  anything  they  aimed  at,  but  they  did  a 
fair  amount  of  damage  all  the  same.  Some- 
times they  departed  from  this  rule  and  fired 
anyhow,  no  two  shots  in  the  same  direction, 
and  then  things  were  not  pleasant.  Take 
it  all  round,  it  was  not  pleasant  work  going 
round  to  see  your  patients  when  the  firing  was 
on  ;  but  if  they  were  firing  in  one  quarter, 
you  left  those  patients  until  they  had  slewed 
the  gun  round  a  bit  to  another  quarter,  and 
then  went  to  see  them. 

I   think    the   doctors'  drivers   had    the  worst 


is8  Besieae^  b^  tbe  Boers 

job  of  all,  for  they  had  to  sit  in  the  carts 
and  wait  whilst  we  were  in  the  houses.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  the  houses  were  little,  if  any, 
safer  than  the  open,  but  somehow  you  felt 
safer  inside  than  out.  Several  drivers  chucked 
up  their  jobs  and  hooked  it,  but  mine  stuck 
to  his  work  like  a  brick  and  never  flinched 
or  hesitated  wherever  he  had  to  go,  though 
he  admitted  he  was  often  badly  scared.  That 
was  precisely  my  feeling.  I  was  badly  scared, 
but  the  work  had  to  be  done,  and  I  felt  that 
if  a  shell  were  destined  to  hit  me,  it  would 
do  so  whether  I  were  in  or  out,  and  whether 
in  a  shelter  or  not,  and  so,  though  I  did 
not  try  to  get  hit,  I  went  about  my  work  as 
usual,  and  never  missed  a  single  ofiice  hour 
or  visiting  a  single  patient  on  account  of 
the  shells.  And  I  think  all  the  doctors  did 
the  same.  You  bet  my  driver  lost  nothing 
by  sticking  to  his  post.  When  we  were  re- 
lieved, I  gave  him  ten  pounds,  and  our  Zulu 
boy  five  pounds,  for  he  had  come  and  done 
his  work  just  the  same  as  usual. 

It  was)  on  this  day  (February  9th)  that  the 
De  Beers  people  began  to  put  up  my  splinter- 
proof  shelter.     It  was  put  in  the  passage  way 


ZCbe  IRusb  tot  Sbelter  159 

between  the  dining-room  and  the  storeroom, 
and  the  entrance  to  it  was  just  outside  the 
back  door  of  the  house  proper.  If  you  look 
at  the  plan  of  the  house,  you  will  see  exactly 
where  '  it  was.  The  passage  is  nearly  seven 
feet  wide,  and  so  there  was  plenty  of  room. 

First  of  all  strong  steel  plates  five-eighths 
of  an  inch  thick  were  put  up  against  the 
wall  of  the  dining-room,  then  a  framework 
of  huge  mine  props  twelve  inches  thick  was 
put  up  ;  the  roof  was  made  of  similar  timbers, 
and  was  seven  feet  high,  and  on  the  top  of 
these  another  steel  plate  was  laid. 

The  shells  could  not  come  from  the  kitchen 
side  at  all,  so  we  just  left  that  wall  as  it  was. 
Then  the  two  sides  were  built  up  with  sacks 
filled  with  earth  taken  out  of  the  garden  and 
laid  endways,  so  that  a  shell  or  splinter  would 
have  to  come  through  quite  two  feet  of  earth 
before  getting  at  us.  We  were  late  beginning 
our  fort,  so  nearly  all  the  sacks  were  gone ; 
but  I  went  round  to  several  of  the  bakers  and 
fossicked  out  a  good  lot.  It  took  a  lot  of 
earth  to  fill  the  sacks,  and  this  had  to  be 
dug  out  of  the  garden.  I  had  a  nice  patch 
of  barley  growing  for  my  horses,  but  this  all 


i6o  Besicoc^  b\?  tbc  Boers 

went  into  the  sacks,  together  with  lots  of  bulbs 
and  other  garden-stuff.  The  bulbs  will  not 
be  hurt,  but  the  rest  of  the  truck  will  be 
beyond  resurrection. 

On  the  first  day  the  fort  did  not  make  much 
progress,  as  the  boys  were  sawing  the  timbers 
the  right  length  and  getting  the  materials  to- 
gether. I  think  they  liked  working  here,  for 
we  gave  them  lime  juice  to  drink,  as  it  was 
very  hot,  and  they  said  they  were  very  hungry, 
so  we  gave  them  some  big  chunks  of  very  coarse 
brown  bread,  which  they  seemed  to  appreciate. 
Everybody  was  on  short  commons  at  this  time, 
so  I  expect  the  compound  boys  were  getting 
very  little  except  mealie-meal  porridge,  and 
none  too  much  of  that. 

By  the  way,  I  ought  to  have  told  you  that 
at  about  this  time  I  sold  one  of  my  horses 
to  be  killed  and  eaten.  He  was  one  of  the 
original  horses  I  bought  when  I  took  over 
the  practice,  and  had  done  heaps  of  good  work 
for  me.  Before  the  war,  as  he  was  getting 
old,  I  turned  him  out  to  grass  on  a  farm, 
meaning  to  let  him  end  his  days  in  peace 
there,  getting  him  in  for  a  few  weeks  now  and 
then  to  relieve  a  sick  or  lame  horse.     When 


Ube  IRusb  for  Sbelter  i6r 

the  war  broke  out,  I  had  to  get  him  in,  or  let 
the  Dutch  steal  him.  For  a  time  I  kept  three 
horses,  but  now  forage  got  so  scarce  that  I 
had  to  get  along  with  two.  I  would  never 
have  sold  him  to  be  worked  and  hammered 
about  in  a  Scotch  cart,  but  now  it  was  a  case 
of  either  turning  him  out  to  die  of  starvation  on 
the  veldt  or  selling  him  to  be  eaten.  So  I  sent 
the  old  chap  to  the  butcher,  and  he  went  to  feed 
the  Lancashires.     He  fetched  thirteen  pounds, 

I  must  tell  you  some  more  about  the 
shelling  on  this  same  day  (February  9th).  It 
went  on  till  dark.  One  shell  went  through 
Watkins's  back  fence,  into  a  shed  where 
carriages  were  stored,  and  smashed  a  victoria 
into  little  bits,  but  did  not  explode,  fortunately 
for  Watkins.  Another  (and  this  is  about  the 
most  wonderful  escape  of  the  siege)  fell  into 
a  room  where  a  lady  was  in  bed,  just  missed 
her  hip,  broke  the  side  of  the  bedstead  into 
bits,  and  harmlessly  buried  itself  in  the  founda- 
tion under  the  floor.  Had  it  exploded,  she 
would  have  been  blown  into  little  bits,  but 
it  did   not. 

The  last  shell  that  night  was  the  biggest 
tragedy     of     the     siege.        it     went     into     the 


i62  McsiCQCtf  bp  tbe  Boers 

Grand  Hotel  at  the  corner  of  the  Market 
Square,  and  killed  George  Labram,  the  chief 
engineer  to  the  De  Beers  Company.  He,  of 
all  the  people  in  Kimberley,  had  probably 
done  more  to  frustrate  the  plans  of  the  Boers 
and  make  things  unpleasant  for  them  than 
anybody  else.  He  fixed  up  the  new  water 
supply  when  our  proper  supply  was  cut  off ; 
he  made  the  shells  for  our  guns  to  use  ;  and 
it  was  he  who  manufactured  "Long  Cecil," 
having  to  make  many  of  the  necessary  tools 
for  the  rifling  from  his  own  ideas  ;  and  in 
many  minor  ways  he  had  helped  the  military 
to  worry  the  Boers. 

He  was  an  American,  and  just  as  smart  as 
they  make  them,  even  in  America,  and  was 
a  first-rate  fellow  into  the  bargain.  He  had 
had  several  narrow  shaves  with  the  shells, 
but  this  day  it  seemed  as  if  he  were  doomed. 
Coming  away  from  the  machine  shops  at 
half-past  five  a  shell  very  nearly  got  him, 
and  then  he  came  to  the  hotel  for  dinner. 
His  room  was  on  the  top  floor,  and  the 
hotel  was  directly  in  the  big  gun's  line  of 
fire  when  it  was  aimed  at  the  Town  Hall, 
so    it    was    not    a    safe    place. 


XTbe  IRusb  tor  Sbelter  163 

Labram  stayed  downstairs  in  the  hotel  till 
the  firing  seemed  to  have  ceased,  and  then  he 
went  up  to  wash  before  dinner,  and  a  final 
shell  came  along  and  killed  him.  He  was 
shockingly  mauled,  half  his  head  being  caved 
in,  also  his  chest  and  abdomen,  and  both  his 
thighs  were  so  smashed  up  that  they  just 
hung  on  by  a  few  shreds.  The  only  con- 
solation was  that  death  must  have  been 
instantaneous,  and  he  can  have  felt  no  pain. 
One  of  the  hotel  servants  was  in  the  room 
at  the  same  time,   and  he  was  not  touched. 

The  poor  chap's  wife  was  away  in  America, 
so  the  De  Beers  Company  arranged  to  have 
the  body  embalmed  as  well  as  they  could,  and 
have  it  soldered  up  in  an  air-tight  coffin,  so 
that  he  could  be  taken  home  and  buried  later 
on.  This  accident,  as  you  may  well  imagine, 
cast  a  heavy  gloom  over  us,  for  everybody 
knew  and  liked  the  man,  and  none  of  us 
could  feel  that  it  was  not  possibly  his  own 
turn   next. 

All  this  day,  besides  the  work  on  private 
shelters,  big  public  shelters  were  being  made 
wherever  there  were  convenient  places.  These 
were   made    by   the    Dc   Beers   Company's   boys 


1 64  Bes!e({e&  bp  tbe  JBocvs 

and  the  natives  who  were  working  on  the 
roads  for  the  Relief  Committee,  about  which 
I  will  tell  you  later  on.  Most  of  the  shelters 
were  made  in  the  sides  of  the  debris  heaps, 
which  are  almost  all  over  the  town.  A  deep 
trench  was  cut  in  the  sloping  side  of  the 
heaps,  and  then  this  was  lined  and  roofed  with 
timber  and  galvanized  iron,  and  a  thick  layer 
of  earth  was  thrown  on  to  the  top  and  hanked 
up  against  the  front  face  of  the  shelter. 
Several  of  these  shelters  were  many  yards 
long  and  had  several  openings,  so  that  people 
could  get  in  and  out  easily. 

In  Beaconsfield,  on  one  side  of  the  main 
road,  there  was  a  big  heap  with  an  almost 
perpendicular  face,  and  here  they  just  drove 
tunnels  straight  into  the  heap.  It  looked  very 
funny  from  the  road  to  see  these  catacombs. 
The  big  bridge  which  carried  the  road  over 
the  railway  near  the  station  was  made  into 
a  shelter  by  leaning  timbers  against  the  sides 
of  it,  putting  steel  plates  next  them,  and 
then  banking  up  with  sandbags  and  loose 
earth.  Many  people  who  lived  near  the 
station  took  refuge  under  trenches  in  the  big 
station    building,    and    in    the  engine-sheds,    in 


Ubc  IRusF)  for  S belter  165 

the   ashpits,    and   under  the   engines,  of  which 
we  had  a  dozen  or  more  in  Kimberley. 

Speaking  of  the  railway  reminds  me  that  a 
shell  struck  one  of  the  rails  near  the  station 
and  knocked  out  a  piece  of  rail  twenty-two 
inches  long,  and  deposited  it  upon  the  roof 
of  an  hotel  over  a  hundred  yards  away. 

All  through  the  bombardment  the  people 
who  lived  near  any  of  the  culverts  which 
carry  the  rain-water  off  used  to  shelter  there 
when  shelling  was  going  on,  and  many  of 
those  who  lived  near  debris  heaps  made  their 
own  private  excavations  there.  All  round  the 
public  gardens  a  wide  drain,  quite  ten  feet 
deep,  runs,  and  many  of  the  good-class  people 
made  shelters  there  by  getting  old  railway 
rails  or  tram  rails,  and  roofing  a  part  of  the 
drain  in  with  these,  piling  loose  earth  on 
the  top. 

On  the  next  day  (Saturday,  February  loth) 
we  were  all  very  depressed  on  account  of 
Labram's  death,  and  we  expected  heavy  shell- 
ing again,  but  we  had  comparatively  few 
shells  that  day.  A  few  came  in  between 
6  a.m.  and  9  a.m.,  and  then  no  more  till 
about    4.30    p.m.,    hut    \vc    had   a    few    of  the 


1 66  Besieaeb  b^  tbc  Boers 

smaller  shells  from  guns  in  other  parts. 
These,  however,  we  quite  disregarded  ;  after 
the  big  gun  we  cared  for  none  of  the  smaller 
ones.  They  were  to  be  treated  as  if  the  Boers 
were  spitting  at  us. 

Of  course  there  were  all  sorts  of  reasons 
given  why  the  big  gun  rested  so  long — it 
had  burst,  or  they  were  short  of  ammunition, 
etc.  The  real  reason  was  that  some  of  our 
men  had  got  into  a  position  about  seventeen 
hundred  yards  from  the  big  gun,  and  made 
it  lively  for  the  men  working  it  whenever 
they  brought  it  out  to  fire. 

We  had  at  first  thought  that  it  was  what 
is  called  a  disappearing  gun,  which  is  worked 
from  a  deep  pit,  only  being  raised  to  be  fired, 
but  it  was  nothing  of  the  sort  ;  its  carriage 
moved  sideways,  so  it  was  hauled  behind  a 
strong  fortification  to  be  loaded  and  then  pushed 
out  to  be  sighted  and  fired,  and  directly  it 
appeared  from  behind  its  shelter,  our  riflemen 
and  big  "  Cecil"  let  rip  at  it  and  the  men  work- 
ing it.  They  made  it  so  warm  for  them  that 
they  did  very  little  all  day.  Later  on  we  heard 
that  the  two  principal  men  on  the  gun  were 
Frenchmen,  and  that  one  of  our  bullets  curled 


Ube  IRnsb  for  Shelter  167 

one  of  them  up,  going  clean  through  his  head. 
This  dodge  of  ours  was  kept  up  until  we  were 
relieved,  and  five  or  six  of  the  men  at  the 
gun  are  said  to  have  been  killed  altogether. 
Anyhow,  it  damped  their  ardour  a  good  deal, 
and  prevented  them  firing  as  much  as  they 
otherwise  would  have  done. 

I  was  fairly  busy  all  the  day,  as  I  did  an 
operation  for  a  bad  case  and  had  a  lot  of  other 
work  besides.  In  several  places  I  found  my 
patients  who  were  too  ill  to  be  up,  lying  on 
mattresses  in  their  shelters,  and  ghastly  little 
dog-kennels  lots  of  them  were.  The  entrances 
were  of  course  very  low  and  narrow,  to  prevent 
splinters  of  shell  flying  in,  and  I  had  to  back 
down  into  them,  just  as  I  used  to  have  to  do 
into  the  North  Sea  fishing-smack  cabins.  The 
atmosphere  of  them  reminded  me  of  the  smacks 
too,  as  they  were  fearfully  hot,  and  in  most  of 
them  there  was  not  the  least  attempt  at  venti- 
lation, though  a  few  had  pieces  of  iron  piping 
stuck  through  the  roof.  During  the  day  our 
own  shelter  advanced  rapidly ;  the  roof  was  all 
completed  and  the  most  exposed  side  built 
up  to  within  about  two  feet  of  the  roof,  and 
the  other  side  nearly   finished  too, 


1 68  Besieged  bx>  tbe  JBoers 

About  half-past  four  the  gun  started  again, 
and  went    along   till    about    half-past    six,    but 
very    little    damage    was    done.       One    small 
piece    came    through    the    club   verandah   roof, 
and    another    slightly    wounded    one     of    the 
Lancashires.       When     the    gun     stopped,    we 
congratulated    ourselves    that    we    had    got    off 
easily,    but    we    were     a     bit     too     previous, 
Labram's     funeral     had     been     arranged     for 
8   p.m.,  for    it    was    sure    to    be    a  very   large 
one,    and    the    Boers    would    be    able    to    see 
it,   and    fire    at  the   people  following,   by  day- 
light, so   it  was  decided   to   have  it   by  night. 
Directly   the  procession   left  the   hospital  gates 
(it   is  said    by  people   who   were   looking   out) 
a    rocket    was    sent    up    somewhere     not     far 
off    the    hospital,    and     the    big    gun    started 
immediately,    and    put    in    four    or    five    shells 
very     close     indeed     to     the     funeral.      Some 
infernal   traitor  had,  no  doubt,   told   the  Boers 
all  about    the    funeral    arrangements,  and    sent 
up    the    rocket    to    let    them    know    when     it 
started.     This  sort  of  thing  we  had  got  quite 
used    to,    for    our     half-hearted    special    court 
(called  "  martial  "  because  there  are  no  soldiers 
in     it)    never     convicted     any     traitor     unless 
absolutely  compelled. 


Ubc  IRusb  for  Sbelter  169 

When  the  funeral  was  over,  we  expected 
the  shells  to  stop.  I  had  to  see  a  patient 
at  the  hospital,  and  two  more  in  the  main 
road  between  my  house  and  there.  At  nine 
I  started  out,  and  when  about  a  hundred 
yards  or  so  away,  I  saw  a  big  flash  of  light. 
As  it  was  a  dark,  cloudy  night,  I  thought 
this  was  lightning.  Then  I  heard  the  bugle, 
but  did  not  take  much  notice  of  it,  as  the 
bugle  in  the  camp  close  by  always  goes  at 
nine  ;  but  a  minute  after  I  heard  the  boom 
of  the  gun,  and  then  the  shell  came  along 
mighty  near — so  near  that  I  cowered  down 
under  a  galvanized  iron  fence,  not  that  that 
would  be  any  protection,  but  anyhow  it  feii 
safer.  Some  pieces  of  shell,  or  stones  thrown 
up  by  the  shell,  rattled  on  the  roofs  round 
me.  I  picked  myself  up  and  moved  on  a 
little  to  the  first  patient  I  wanted  to  see.  A 
few  shells  went  whilst  I  was  in  the  house, 
and  when  I  came  out,  the  patient's  husband 
walked  down  his  garden  with  me  to  the 
gate.  Half-way  down  the  garden,  rip  came  a 
shell  very  close,  and  we  both  dropped  flat 
and  pulled  in  our  heads  and  lay  close  like 
tortoises.  Ihc  pieces  dropped  all  round  us, 
but  we  were   not  touched. 


17©  3Besieget)  b^  tbe  Boers 

We  picked  ourselves  up  and  felt  over  our 
bodies,  just  to  see  that  no  arms  or  legs  or 
heads  had  dropped  off,  and  then  I  moved  on 
to  the  next  patient — the  one  on  whom  I  had 
operated  that  afternoon.  She  was  well  under 
morphia,  but  the  shells  were  dropping  all 
round  her  house  and  had  frightened  her  a 
good  deal.  Whilst  I  was  seeing  her,  one 
burst  close  by,  and  the  pieces  rattled  on  the 
roof  of  the  room  she  was  in.  When  I  left 
her,  I  stayed  on  the  front  verandah  for  a  couple 
of  minutes  talking  to  her  husband,  and  whilst 
there,  "bang"  came  a  shell  into  a  house  exactly 
opposite  where  I  was,  but  on  the  other  side 
of  the  road.     Then  I  went  on  to  the  hospital. 

Shelling  is  bad  enough  in  the  daytime,  but 
it  is  heaps  worse  at  night.  In  the  day  you 
can  see  where  the  shell  lands,  and  if  it  is  not 
too  close,  you  feel  all  right,  but  at  night,  first 
you  hear  the  bugle  and  you  try  to  sit  tight 
and  pretend  you  did  not  hear  it,  then  comes 
the  "  boom "  and  "  whiz,"  and  you  have  to 
pretend  harder  than  ever.  Even  when  the 
shell  bursts  and  you  know  that  one,  at  any 
rate,  has  not  got  you,  you  don't  feel  happy 
for  another  minute  or  so,  for  the  splinters  fly 


Ubc  IRusb  for  Sbelter  171 

so,  that  there  is  plenty  of  time  for  you  to 
congratulate  yourself  on  escaping  the  shell  and 
then  get  your  head  caved  in  by  a  splinter. 

After  I  got  to  the  hospital  the  shells  did 
not  seem  to  be  quite  so  close.  I  sat  on  the 
verandah  with  the  doctors,  and  yarned  to  them 
and  listened  to  the  music  for  quite  an  hour 
and  a  half.  I  wanted  to  get  off  home,  as  I 
knew  Agnes  would  imagine  that  I  had  butted 
up  against  a  shell,  but  all  the  same,  good  as 
home  seemed  to  be,  where  I  was  was  plenty 
good  enough,  as  the  shells  were  falling  then. 
One  landed  fairly  near  the  hospital,  and  a 
good-sized  piece  of  it  came  through  the 
roof  of  one  of  the  outlying  wards,  struck 
a  lamp  that  was  burning,  and  smashed  it, 
carrying  away  a  thick  iron  bar  that  supported 
it,  but  none  of  the  patients  were  hit  and 
nothing  was  set  on  fire. 

After  half-past  ten  the  firing  slackened  a 
little,  and  on  timing  the  shells  there  seemed 
to  be  about  eight  minutes  between  them,  so  I 
thought  I  would  have  time  to  get  home  be- 
tween two,  but  then  they  began  again  quickly, 
so  I  did  not  start.  We  expected  they  would 
stop  at  midnight,  as  the  Boers  are  consistent  in 


172  BcsicQC^  bs  tbe  Boers 

that  one  respect — they  don't  fight  on  Sunday. 
Later  on,  about  a  quarter-past  eleven,  I  deter- 
mined to  come  home  after  the  next  shell,  and 
risk  getting  hit  ;  so  when  it  had  come,  I  started, 
but  was  stopped  at  the  lodge-gate  by  a  man 
who  wanted  to  take  me  off  to  a  case.  I  sent 
him  off  to  get  a  cab,  as  it  was  a  good  long  way 
off,  and  started  for  home  myself,  and  as  luck 
would  have  it,  there  were  no  more  shells.  I 
believe  the  Dutch  were  going  by  Transvaal 
time,  and  so  twenty-five  minutes  past  eleven 
with  us  is  twelve  with  them. 

Agnes  had  been  sitting  in  our  fort,  which 
was  nearly  finished,  and  fancying  that  every 
shell  had  struck  me.  Many  of  those  I  had 
heard  had  gone  very  near  to  the  house,  and  one 
only  just  missed  it,  bursting  about  one  hundred 
and  fifty  yards  farther  on.  After  the  case  was 
over,  I  went  off  to  bed  quite  calmly,  as  I  felt 
sure  that  we  should  have  a  rest  all  the  next 
day,  and  so  it  proved.  All  the  same,  I  turned 
out  as  soon  as  it  was  light  (at  about  5  a.m.), 
to  finish  my  fort.  I  was  not  at  all  sure  that 
the  boys  would  turn  up  to  work  on  Sunday, 
so,  as  there  was  not  much  to  do,  I  thought  I 
would  get  it  finished  myself. 


Ube  IRusb  tor  Sbelter  173 

I  had  some  sacks  left,  and  I  began  to  fill 
these,  but  you  don't  make  much  progress 
shovelling  with  one  hand  and  holding  the 
sack  open  with  the  other.  By-and-by  Agnes 
looked  over  the  top  verandah  to  see  what  I 
was  after,  and,  seeing  how  awkward  it  was,  she 
came  down  and  held  the  sacks  open  whilst  I 
shovelled.  We  had  about  eighteen  sacks,  and 
just  as  they  were  all  full  the  miner  and  the 
natives  turned  up. 

There  was  not  very  much  to  do,  really,  except 
fill  up  about  two  feet  of  one  side  of  the  fort, 
but  as  the  boys  had  turned  up,  I  got  them 
to  alter  the  other  side,  where  the  entrance  was. 
They  had  made  a  square  entrance  just  like 
a  doorway,  and  very  much  too  large,  so  that 
fragments  of  shells  could  come  in  quite  easily, 
if  they  came  in  the  right  direction.  I  made 
them  build  a  sort  of  projecting  spur  in 
front  of  the  opening,  so  that  no  piece  could 
possibly  fly  in  unless  it  had  first  come  through 
the  house.  I  made  them  narrow  the  doorway 
very  much,  leaving  only  just  room  to  squeeze 
in,  and  then  you  did  not  want  to  cat  too 
much  dinner  or  you  would  stick  fast.  This, 
however,    did    not    matter    so    much    on     siege 


174  JBestCQet)  b^  tbe  IBocvs 

fare,  as  big  dinners  were  not  easy  to 
get. 

When  this  work  was  done,  I  still  wanted 
a  lot  of  sacks  to  make  the  place  secure,  so  I 
went  down  to  Dr.  Stoney's  brother  and  got 
some  from  him.  He  had  promised  me  a  few, 
but  I  found  he  could  let  me  have  a  lot — far 
more  than  the  boy  I  took  with  me  could  carry. 
He  lent  me  his  Scotch  cart  and  two  horses, 
and  we  tumbled  the  sacks  in.  Of  course  I 
rode  home  on  the  top  of  the  pile,  much  to 
the  amusement  of  Dr.  Stoney  and  his  brother, 
who  stood  on  their  verandah  and  jeered  at 
m^e.  Dr.  Stoney's  only  regret  was  that  his 
camera  was  out  of  gear,  as  he  said  "  the  sight 
of  Kimberley's  boss  doctor  sitting  on  a  pile 
of  sacks  in  a  Scotch  cart,  and  clad  in  dirty 
flannels  and  big  Boer  hat,  and  with  a  little 
Hottentot  as  driver  and  a  raw  Kaffir  in  a  red 
shirt  as  footman,  was  too  good  to  be  lost." 
One  of  my  best  patients  cut  me  dead  on 
the  way  up,  as  he  did  not  recognise  me, 
though  nobody  worried  much  about  clothes 
these  times. 

With  the  fresh  lot  of  sacks,  the  boys 
finished  up   the   fort  in   style.     I   had  been  in 


XTbe  IRusb  tor  Sbelter  175 

too  many  stuffy  forts  that  week  to  neglect 
ventilation  in  my  own,  so  I  built  in  a  strong 
iron  grating  opposite  to  the  entrance,  in  a 
place  where  it  was  practically  impossible  for 
any  bit  of  shell  to  come,  and  it  answered 
splendidly.  There  was  a  nice  through  current 
of  air  all  the  time.  When  the  miner  took 
his  boys  away,  he  said  :  "  I  don't  know  any- 
thing about  shells,  but  if  the  whole  house 
falls  on   that  fort,    it   won't   hurt." 

That  was  my  view  too.  If  the  big  gun  kept 
in  the  same  place,  we  were  absolutely  safe  ;  but 
if  they  started  others  in  different  quarters,  we 
might  not  feel  so  happy.  The  fort  was  seven 
feet  square  and  seven  high,  so  my  six  feet 
three  had  heaps  of  room  in  every  direction. 
Agnes  pinned  sheets  and  big  bath-towels  all 
round  the  walls  inside,  and  brought  our 
bedding  and  mattresses  down  into  it,  with  a 
looking-glass,  a  clock,  some  books,  a  box  of 
sweets,  and  all  sorts  of  other  gear,  and  we  had 
provisions  close  by  if  things  were  really  bad, 
so  when  we  had  pinned  a  photo  of  Kitchener 
on  the  wall  with  a  big  diamond  brooch,  we  felt 
as  jolly  as  could  be  expected.  We  slept  in  the 
fort  every  night  after  that,  for  the  Boers  often 


176  ffiesiegeC)  b^  tbe  3Boers 

started  their  gun  at  daylight,  and  if  we  were 
upstairs,  we  had  to  keep  our  ears  pricked 
to  hear  the  first  shot  and  then  bolt  for  the 
fort,  whilst  if  we  were  in  the  fort,  we  slumbered 
calmly,  feeling  that  if  a  shell  did  happen  to 
get  us  there,  destiny  must  be  very  decidedly 
against  us,  as  it  would  have  to  work  so  hard 
to  find  us. 

The  photo  of  the  fort  shows  its  construction 
on  the  west  side  and  the  ventilating  grating. 

Our  servants  were  told  that  they  could  come 
into  it  any  time  they  heard  the  bugle.  Lizzie 
came  in  for  a  few  times,  when  she  was  handy, 
but  as  a  rule  did  not  bother,  and  was  really 
very  plucky.  John,  our  Zulu,  preferred  to 
get  behind  the  big  water  tank.  I  don't  think 
that  would  have  saved  him,  but  he  was  happy 
there,  so  that  was  all  right.  He  was  very 
funny  one  day.  We  heard  Lizzie  lecturing 
him  about  something,  and  he  retorted  :  "  Don't 
make  such  a  noise  ;  I  can't  hear  the  gun  go 
off."  The  boom  of  that  gun  would  have 
extinguished  a  megaphone,  so  that  was  a  great 
tribute  to  Lizzie's  vocal  powers. 

I  shall  not  forget  this  Sunday  in  a  hurry. 
It  was  a  day.      First  of  all,  everybody  was  so 


Ube  IRusb  tor  Sbelter  177 

delighted  that  it  was  Sunday,  as  that  meant 
rest  from  the  shells.  Kimberley  is  not  exactly 
composed  of  Sunday-school  superintendents,  and 
as  a  rule  is  rather  bored  by  Sundays,  but 
not  this  one.  Then,  again,  everywhere  you 
went,  forts  were  being  built,  and  the  clang 
of  sheet  steel,  railway  rails,  old  iron  railway 
sleepers,  etc.,  etc.,  was  heard  all  over  the 
place.  The  streets  were  full  of  carts  and 
handcarts  and  wheelbarrows,  and  even  natives 
carrying  materials  for  forts.  Many  people 
could  not  get  boys,  as  the  demand  was  so 
great  for  labour,  and  so  they  had  to  do  the 
work  themselves. 

Several  of  the  merchants  had  large  stocks 
of  the  coarse  Boer  salt,  which  is  got  by  crystal- 
lisation from  the  salt  pans,  and  they  made 
forts  of  this.  It  is  packed  in  large  sacks,  and 
answered  splendidly.  In  the  first  bombard- 
ment, I  had  seen  at  a  baker's  a  fort  made 
entirely  of  sacks  of  flour.  It  was  very  good, 
but  all  the  same,  I  was  just  as  pleased  I  did 
not  deal  with  that  particular  baker.  But  the 
gem  of  the  collection  in  the  way  of  forts 
was  one  I  saw  in  the  Malay  camp.  It 
belonged  to  a  coolie,  and   he  had  a  large  dog 

12 


178  3BcsiCQC^  b^  tbe  Boers 

in  a  kennel.  He  evicted  the  dog  and  banked 
up  the  kennel  with  old  zinc  baths  and  paraffin 
tins  filled  with  earth,  and  I  have  no  doubt 
was  a  little  king  in  that  yard,  as  nobody  else 
had  a  fort  at  all  there. 

Towards  afternoon  the  vague  rumours  of 
heavy  bombardment  beginning  directly  after 
midnight  began  to  take  shape,  but  the  shape 
was  different  in  each  house.  Anyhow,  every- 
body was  sure  that  Monday  was  going  to 
be  a  bad  day,  and  whether  there  were  to  be 
two  new  big  guns  or  twenty  was  immaterial. 
Early  in  the  afternoon  notices  signed  by  Mr. 
Rhodes  were  posted  up  in  many  places,  and 
sent  around  the  town  on  a  cart,  to  the  effect 
that  women  and  children  were  advised  to  take 
shelter  in  the  two  big  mines.  It  was  promised 
that  arrangements  would  be  made  to  lower 
them  down,  and  make  them  as  comfortable  as 
possible.  This  being  signed  by  Mr.  Rhodes 
was  looked  upon  as  a  confirmation  of  the 
rumours,  as  many  people  at  once  concluded 
that  Mr.  Rhodes  had  had  private  information 
as  to  what  was  going  to  happen  on  the 
morrow,  and  a  regular  panic  ensued. 


CHAPTER    X 

A   NEW   USE   FOR   DIAMOND-MINES 

LATER  in  the  afternoon  the  streets  were 
again  filled,  but  this  time  with  people 
hurrying  to  the  mines  with  their  children, 
some  carrying  their  babies,  others  carrying 
blankets  or  bedding,  others  food,  but  all 
loaded  up  with  something.  Cabs  could  not 
be  got,  all  the  horses  being  turned  out  to 
earn  their  own  living,  as  there  was  no  forage 
left  except  for  the  military  horses,  and  so 
every  one  had  to  walk.  As  I  went  round 
seeing  my  patients,  1  was  asked  by  them  all 
what  I  advised  them  to  do.  I  know  the 
mines  pretty  well  down  below,  and  though 
the  places  the  people  would  go  to  were  cool 
and  lofty,  my  advice  always  was:  "  If  you 
have  a  fairly  strong  fort  of  your  own,  don't 
go   down  below."     This  seemed  sense   to   me, 

179 


i8o  Besieae&  b^  tbe  Boers 

for  there  must  be  intervals  between  the  firing 
during  which  you  could  get  food  and  a  bath 
and  so  on,  and  the  prospect  of  being  shut 
up  in  the  same  compartment  with  about 
a  hundred  children  did  not  seem  sufficiently 
alluring  to  compensate  for  the  extra  danger 
incurred  by  staying  above  ground. 

I  believe  Mr.  Rhodes's  original  intention 
was  to  offer  shelter  in  the  mines  to  those 
who  had  no  place  of  shelter  to  go  to,  or 
who  had  insufficient  protection  of  their  own. 
Many  of  the  poor  people  had  no  means  of 
making  shelters  for  themselves,  and  could 
neither  affiDrd  the  material  nor  the  labour 
necessary  to  make  one,  and  it  was  to  these 
that  the  mines  were  offered.  The  notice, 
however,  did  not  state  so,  and  many  better- 
class  people  went  down.  The  mine-heads 
were  crowded  with  people,  and  though  they 
began  to  lower  them  down  at  about  5.30 
p.m.,  it  was  long  after  midnight  before 
they  were  all  in  the  mines.  More  than  a 
thousand  went  down  Kimberley  Mine,  and 
about  fifteen  hundred  were  taken  down  in 
De  Beers'  Mine,  yet  neither  in  letting  them 
down   nor  hauling  them  up  again   nor   during 


0. 


H  1Rew  xase  for  S)tamonD=«/IIMne6    iSi 

their  four  days'  stay  down  below  was  there 
a  single  accident  to  any  one  of  them. 

All  this  time  provisions,  or,  rather,  luxuries, 
had  been  getting  dearer.  We  had  a  fowl 
for  dinner,  price  fifteen  shillings,  and  we 
bought  some  eggs  for  twenty-two  shillings 
a  dozen.  Vegetables  were  very  scarce,  and 
often  unprocurable.  We  used  to  make  salad 
of  a  weed  that  grew  in  our  garden.  We  had 
planted  several  beds  of  things  that  did  not 
come  up,  or  died  from  want  of  water,  but 
this  weed  came  up  instead,  and  very  handy 
we  found  it. 

Shelling  began  at  about  seven  on  Monday, 
February  22nd,  but  in  a  half-hearted  sort  of 
a  way,  and  not  much  damage  was  done — in 
fact,  the  whole  day's  performance  was  a  pleasant 
surprise,  as  we  had  expected  a  very  lively 
time.  Our  old  friend  was  still  the  only  big 
gun  at  work.  The  streets  were  almost  deserted, 
for  in  addition  to  the  people  who  had  gone 
down  the  mine,  many  others  had  gone  to 
Beaconsfield  for  safety.  Beaconsfield  lies  at 
the  foot  of  a  hill,  and  Kimberley  on  the  top 
of  it,  so  Beaconsfield  is  not  visible  from  where 
the    big    gun    Hres,    and    as    there    is    an    open 


i82  JBesiegeD  bv  tbe  Boers 

space  nearly  half  a  mile  wide  between  the  two 
places,  I  expect  the  Boers  thought  they  were 
as  likely  to  hit  the  space  as  the  houses,  and 
did  not  care  to  waste  shells. 

The  patient  I  operated  on  on  Saturday 
moved  down  yesterday,  also  the  man  whose 
leg  was  hit  by  a  piece  of  shell  a  few  days  ago. 
The  gun  could  reach  Beaconsfield  with  the 
greatest  ease,  and  soon  after  this  last  man 
moved,  a  big  shell  landed  fairly  close  to  his 
house  there,  but  that  was  the  only  one  that  got 
so  far.  The  shells  which  flew  such  a  distance 
were  curious  to  listen  to.  When  this  one 
went  off,  I  was  at  a  house  about  as  near  to 
the  gun  as  I  could  go.  We  heard  the  shell 
go  over,  and  then  its  noise  became  more  and 
more  indistinct,  until,  when  far  away,  the  usual 
whiz  seemed  to  be  quite  lost,  and  the  noise 
reminded  me  of  an  empty  cart  galloping  down 
a  country  lane  far  away  on  a  still  night.  Then 
it  plunged  into  something  and  burst. 

One  of  the  shells  fired  a  block  of  four 
houses  in  Kenilworth  to-day,  but  I  do  not 
think  they  were  burnt  out.  Another  struck 
the  street  about  twenty  yards  from  a  house 
where    one    of  my    private    nurses  was  nursing 


a  IRew  lase  for  H)iamont)*/IIMne5    183 

a  patient.  It  did  not  burst,  but  bounced  off 
again  through  an  iron  fence,  making  a  big 
clatter,  and  disappeared  nobody  knows  where. 
The  nurse  was  splendidly  plucky,  and  so  was 
the  patient.  The  house  in  which  they  were 
was  near  the  foot  of  the  conning  tower,  and 
therefore  was  liable  to  be  hit  at  any  time,  but 
neither  nurse  nor  patient  wanted  any  shelter. 
The  patient  lay  calmly  in  bed  and  said  she 
did  not  expect  she  would  get  hurt,  and  the 
nurse  never  flinched,  but  looked  after  her  like 
a  brick.  The  nurse  took  me  to  look  over 
the  back  fence  at  a  sight  I  don't  expect  to 
see  again.  This  was  a  lot  of  Kaffir  women 
building  themselves  a  shelter  with  heavy  mine 
timbers.  Everybody  was  busy,  and  no  one 
could  be  spared  to  fix  them  up,  so  they  were 
told  that  there  was  the  timber  and  they  could 
build  for  themselves,  and  they  did. 

To-day  a  shell  went  through  a  nice,  new 
two-storied  house  not  so  far  from  the  Sana- 
torium. It  was  built  soon  after  mine,  and 
by  the  same  architect  (Jarvls).  lie  always 
professed  to  believe  that  the  Hoers  were 
in  the  right,  hut  how  he  will  feel  when  he 
hears  that   they  have   wrecked   one  cjf   his   very 


1 84  3Besieae&  b?  tbe  JSoers 

special  houses,  I  don't  know.  There  were 
twelve  people  scattered  about  the  house,  and 
not  one  of  them  was  touched,  but  pretty 
well  all  the  upper  story  was  wrecked,  and 
will  have  to  be  rebuilt,  A  suit  of  clothes 
hanging  up  was  riddled  to  such  an  extent 
that  three  more  tears  would  have  caused 
them  to  fall  into  little  bits.  They  were  a 
sight  :  no  self-respecting  scarecrow  would  be 
seen  dead  beside  them. 

Another  shell  burst  in  the  hospital  grounds, 
about  twenty  yards  from  the  side  of  a  ward 
full  of  patients,  and  later  on  a  shell  dropped 
into  an  aloe  thicket  in  the  hospital  grounds, 
but  did  not  burst.  These  aloes  are  very 
thick  and  tough,  so  they  stopped  the  shell 
without  leaving  a  mark  on  it.  It  is  the 
nicest  specimen  I  have  seen,  and  will,  I  have 
no  doubt,  be  mounted  and  put  in  the  entrance 
hall  at  the  hospital  as  a  trophy  if  we  ever 
do  come  out  of  our  troubles  right  side  up. 
The  hospital  porter  fished  it  out  of  the  aloes 
and  commenced  to  experiment  upon  it  with 
a  stick,  giving  it  a  good  old  stir  up  and 
smoking  all  the  time.  Dr.  Russell  admired 
his  zeal,  but  thought  him  lacking  in  discretion, 


THE    RIGHT    HON.    CECIL    UHOUES. 


[Page  184 


B  IRew  lase  tor  S)iamon^*/Il^lnes    185 

and  made  him  put  it  in  a  tub  of  water  before 
he  proceeded  with  his  experiments. 

By  the  way,  a  friend  told  me  a  lovely 
yarn  about  one  of  these  big  shells  to-day. 
Wherever  a  shell  falls,  whether  it  bursts  or 
not,  there  is  a  rush  for  it,  as  both  shell  and 
pieces  are  marketable,  if  you  don't  wish  to 
stick  to  them  yourself.  My  friend  was  out 
with  the  cattle  guard,  and  a  big  shell  fell 
close  to  two  natives  who  were  with  him, 
and  did  not  explode.  It  was  rather  too  hot 
to  carry  off,  so  they  fought  vigorously  for 
possession,  and  the  victor  then  sat  down  on 
it,  to  take  care  of  it  till  it  had  cooled  down 
enough  for  him  to  take  it  away. 

I  heard  of  another  little  joke  to-day  which 
amused  me  mightily.  A  certain  man  built  a 
large  and  fine  Ai  copper-bottomed  fort.  A 
neighbour  came  to  inspect  it,  and  found  great 
fault  with  it — in  fact,  condemned  it  altogether, 
and  strongly  advised  the  proud  owner  to  take 
his  family  down  the  mine  for  safety.  This  he 
promptly  did.  Then  the  neighbour,  having  a 
very  rotten  fort  of  his  own,  took  possession  of 
the  good  one  with  equal  promptness,  and  all 
was  peace.      (N.B. —  The    b:uul    played   later.) 


1 86  BesieaeC)  b^  tbe  Boers 

To-day  we  had  no  newspaper,  but  a  little 
slip  came  out,  saying  that  for  reasons  that  would 
be  explained  afterwards,  the  paper  had  shut 
down  for  a  time.  We  none  of  us  required 
an  explanation,  for  we  all  expected  this  to 
happen  to-day.  For  some  time  there  had 
been  friction  between  the  paper  and  the  military 
censor,  as  he  refused  to  let  anything  but  the 
vaguest  accounts  of  the  siege  and  our  general 
condition  be  heliographed  through.  When 
the  big  gun  started,  several  correspondents 
tried  to  wire  through  about  it,  as  it  seemed 
to  us  that  it  was  time  for  our  rehef  column  to 
get  up  and  hustle  a  bit.  But  that  was  not 
the  censor's  idea.  He  flatly  refused  to  let  any 
information  of  the  use  of  a  bigger  gun  go 
through  at  all.  Whether  he  actually  got  it 
out  or  not,  I  do  not  know  ;  if  he  didn't, 
this  was  on  the  tip  of  his  tongue  :  "  It  might 
interfere  with  the  military  situation." 

Oh,  Lord !  that  "  military  situation."  It 
was  the  answer  to  every  conundrum  you  liked 
to  ask  all  through  the  siege.  After  this  the 
paper  got  mad,  and  on  Saturday  morning 
dodged  the  censor  and  came  out  with  a  very 
strong  leader  on  the  foolishness  of  such  censor- 


H  1Rew  *Clse  for  S)iamonb*/II>ine5    187 

ship,  and  just  walked  into  the  military  people 
all  round.  So  we  were  not  surprised  to  get 
no  paper  to-day,  and  we  were  not  particularly 
disappointed,  for  there  was  no  news  in  the 
paper  at  all,  and  we  had  got  a  little  tired  of 
stories  of  the  Battle  of  Waterloo,  and  other 
ancient  history  with  which  the  dearth  of 
news  had  been  helped  out.  Even  the  Mother 
Seigel  man  had  ceased  to  trot  out  new  pitfalls 
in  the  way  of  advertisements.  I  do  not  think 
the  paper  was  suppressed,  but  as  the  military 
possessed  all  the  channels  of  information,  I 
guess  they  shut  them  all  up.  The  result  was 
the  same  :   no  paper. 

February  ii^th. — We  had  rather  a  rest  from 
the  shells  to-day.  Only  about  twenty  came 
in  altogether,  but  they  did  a  fair  amount  of 
damage,  all  the  same,  and  got  on  people's 
nerves  a  good  deal.  Many  of  my  patients 
stayed  in  their  shelters  all  the  time,  and  as  it 
was  a  hot  day  and  many  of  the  shelters  were 
very  small  and  stuffy,  they  suffered  accordingly. 
One  shell  struck  the  Presbyterian  Church. 
The  English  Church  had  been  hit  in  the  first 
bombardment,  but  the  Dutch  Church  escaped 
altogether.      It  was  curious   to  ntjticc   tliiit  many 


1 88  3Besieoe^  bi?  tbe  Boers 

people  among  the  Dutch  took  shelter  in  their 
church  when  the  shelling  was  on  ;  either  they 
had  greater  faith  than  the  other  religions,  or, 
what  is  far  more  likely,  they  had  had  word 
from  their  friends  on  the  outside  that  the 
church  would  not  be  shelled.  We  had  heaps 
of  traitors  in  the  place,  who  went  to  and  fro 
much  as  they  pleased  ;  and  though  I  don't 
think  the  gunners  could  see  the  Dutch  Church, 
I  have  no  doubt  they  had  accurate  plans  of  the 
town,  and  could  locate  all  the  big  buildings. 

Two  shells  went  into  Nazareth  House  (the 
Catholic  orphanage),  or,  rather,  one  dropped 
just  at  the  back  door,  and  the  other  burst 
overhead,  and  a  big  bit  of  it  went  through 
the  roof  into  the  sisters'  sitting-room.  This 
last  was  a  shrapnel,  and  was  the  first  of  the 
big  gun  shrapnels  I  had  seen.  They  are  not 
quite  the  same  as  the  smaller  ones  we  had 
got  to  know  before.  They  have  a  big,  solid 
base  weighing  fourteen  pounds.  On  to  this 
a  thin  steel  sheet  is  fastened  to  make  the 
receptacle  for  the  bullets.  The  bullets  are 
about  the  size  of  ordinary  marbles,  and  are 
not  loose,  but  lie  in  holes  in  cast-iron  discs, 
like  marbles  on  a  solitaire  board.     These  discs 


B  IRew  met  tor  2)tamonb»=/IIMnes    189 

are  not  solid,  but  are  divided  up  into  lots 
of  small  pieces  by  deep  notches,  which  are  so 
arranged  that  when  the  shell  bursts,  the  pieces 
will  come  apart  easily,  and  fly  about  like 
the  bullets  ;  but  each  piece  has  about  a  dozen 
jagged  corners  and  would  make  a  ghastly 
wound.  The  discs  are  threaded  on  a  wide 
copper  tube,  which  conducts  the  flame  from 
the  fuse  at  the  point  of  the  shell  to  the  charge 
near  its  base,  which  rips  the  shell  open  when 
it  bursts.  The  steel  case  takes  up  all  sorts  of 
outlandish  shapes,  as  it  does  not  fly  to  pieces, 
but  just  gets  bent  and  twisted  up,  making 
very  queer  noises  as  it  flies  through  the  air. 
I  heard  one  whistle  just  like  a  hooter.  This 
particular  Nazareth  one  looked  more  like  the 
breastplate  of  an  ancient  suit  of  armour  or  a 
dilapidated  soup   tureen  than  anything  else. 

I  forgot  to  say  that  on  Sunday  Rhodes  some- 
how got  a  message  from  Lord  Roberts  to  the 
efl^ect  that  the  column  was  going  to  move  to 
our  relief  at  once,  and  every  day  we  heard 
rumours  of  heavy  firing  on  both  sides  of 
Spytfontein,  but  nothing  has  come  of  it  so  far. 

February  \\th. — To-day  has  been  a  great 
day.     We  do  at  last  seem   to  have  beaten   the 


19°  Besieae^  b^  tbe  Boers 

wily  Boer  on  his  own  ground.  Shelling  began 
about  as  early  as  usual,  but  they  treated  us 
to  some  small  shells  from  a  gun  in  their  old 
position  near  the  lazaretto,  and  one  of  these 
killed  a  man  working  in  a  bakery  quite  early 
in  the  morning.  The  big  gun  was  evidently 
trying  for  the  Army  Office  just  behind  us,  for 
several  of  its  shells  came  rather  close  to  us  when 
we  were  at  breakfast.  I  hate  to  be  disturbed 
at  my  meals,  either  by  patients  or  shells,  so  I 
sat  tight  and  proceeded.  I  had  got  well  used 
to  shells  by  this  time,  and  though  I  had  the 
instinct  to  take  cover  whenever  I  heard  a  shell 
very  well  developed,  I  managed  to  resist  it. 
We  all  had  found  that  the  only  thing  to  do  was 
to  take  a  good  grip  of  yourself  and  sit  fast. 
If  you  once  gave  way  and  let  yourself  go,  it 
was  all  up,  and  you  had  to  strike  out  for  the 
shelter  every  time  the  bugle  went.  I  was 
seeing  a  patient  in  my  office  at  the  chemist's 
a  few  days  before,  when  a  shell  dumped  itself 
into  a  store  next  door  but  one.  I  felt  that  I 
was  urgently  needed  elsewhere,  but  still  I  went 
on  talking  and  fixed  up  the  patient  before  I 
went  downstairs,  though  the  pieces  pattered  on 
the  window  and   roof. 


H  IRew  *Clse  for  S)iamon&*/IIMnes    191 

However,  to  return  to  breakfast.  Just  as  we 
were  finishing,  a  shell  came  very  close,  and  when 
we  rushed  out  to  see  where  it  was,  we  found  it 
had  fallen  and  burst  in  the  street  just  at  the 
end  of  our  yard.  This  was  a  shrapnel  too,  but 
one  of  those  that  only  explode  when  they 
strike,  and  so  much  less  dangerous  than  the 
time-fuse  ones,  which  burst  overhead  and  rain 
bullets  down  on  you.  I  think  the  Boers  had 
used  all  their  stock  ot  solid  shells,  for  I  saw 
several  shells  during  the  day,  and  they  were 
all  this  kind  of  shrapnel. 

Yesterday  the  fourteen-pound  base  of  one 
of  these  went  through  the  water  tank  which 
stands  at  the  corner  of  the  nurses'  home  at 
the  hospital.  That  was  the  third  in  the  hos- 
pital grounds,  and  to-day  several  flew  right 
over  the  hospital.  One  poor  chap,  a  patient 
of  mine,  was  so  terrified  by  them  that  he 
insisted  on  going  out,  though  his  own  place 
is  much  nearer  the  gun.  He  is  very  ill,  and 
will  not  be  able  to  get  much  attention  at 
home,  so   I   am   afraid   he  will  die. 

I  hardly  think  even  the  Boers  intend  to 
hit  the  hospital.  These  were  merely  bad 
shots    at    the    Sanatorium,    where    Mr.    Rhodes 


t92  Besteoe^  b^:  tbe  Boers 

is  staying.  The  shot  which  killed  Labram 
was  a  bad  shot  at  the  Town  Hall,  and  the 
one  which  killed  the  woman  and  child  I 
spoke  of  earlier  on  was  a  bad  shot  at  the 
conning  tower.  They  have  never  yet  hit  a 
thing  they  aimed  at,  but  they  have  done 
some  damage,  all  the  same. 

The  most  wonderful  shell  of  all  was  one 
which  fell  to-day  at  Dr.  Fuller's  gate.  It 
just  ran  its  nose  under  the  curbstones  at  the 
edge  of  the  pavement  and  burst  there.  Two 
big  stones  were  flung  aside,  but  the  biggest 
one,  a  solid  blue  whinstone  block  about 
twenty  inches  long  by  six  inches  wide  and 
ten  inches  deep,  was  thrown  right  up  on 
to  the  roof  of  the  house,  and  from  there 
slid  gently  down  and  lodged  on  the  roof  of 
the  second-story  verandah,  quite  twenty  feet 
above  the  street.  There  it  lies  now.  I  hope 
some  photographer  will  take  a  snap  at  it 
there,  or  you  will  think  some  one  else  lies, 
as  well  as  the  stone. 

So  much  for  the  Boers'  day's  work  ;  now 
for  ours.  Early  in  the  morning  some  natives 
came  from  Alexandersfontein  to  Beaconsfield, 
and  said  that    the  Boers  there   had  all  cleared 


a  Bew  xase  tor  H)iamon&*/IDtnes    193 

out  to  help  another  commando,  which  was 
in  difficulties,  or  wanted  to  do  something 
funny,  and  was  not  strong  enough  to  do  it 
single-handed,  or  something  of  that  sort.  The 
Beaconsfield  Town  Guard  was  a  bit  suspicious 
of  a  trap,  but  sent  out  spies  to  investigate, 
for  Alexandersfontein  was  an  important  posi- 
tion for  the  Boers,  as  there  was  plenty  of 
water  there,  and  it  was  only  about  four 
miles  from  Beaconsfield.  The  spies  found 
the  natives'  story  to  be  quite  true,  and  some 
of  the  Town  Guard,  with  help  from  the 
Lancashires,  Light  Horse,  and  Kimberley 
Rifles,  went  out  and  took  possession.  There 
were  a  few  Boers  there,  but  very  few.  Several 
were  killed,  and  more  wounded,  amongst 
them  a  Dutch  girl  who  was  rather  badly 
hurt  in  the  left  arm.  Four  Boers  were 
taken  prisoners.  The  girl  was  brought  into 
the  hospital  as  soon  as  possible,  and  attended 
to.  It  is  a  regular  Dutch  performance  to 
take  women  and  children  to  the  front.  They 
have  women  with  all  the  commandoes  around 
us.  I  expect  they  imagine  they  are  going 
to  have  a  gay  time  looting  the  Kimberley 
shops,  but   that   has   yet   to  come. 

»3 


194  IBcsicQc^  b\7  tbe  Boers 

After  our  men  had  taken  possession  of 
Alexandersfontein,  they  lay  low  to  wait  for 
developments.  Before  long,  four  waggon- 
loads  of  provisions  and  stores  for  the  Boers 
came  along,  and  came  right  into  our  men's 
hands  before  the  drivers  realised  that  the 
scene  had  changed.  There  was  any  amount 
of  stuff  there  besides  these  four  waggon-loads, 
making  about  twelve  loads  altogether,  so  our 
men  had  a  fine  haul.  There  was  butter, 
vegetables,  grain,  mutton,  pigs,  poultry,  and 
all  sorts  of  things  that  we  had  not  seen  for 
weeks.  Some  of  the  loot  was  sent  up  to 
Kimberley  at  once. 

I  met  the  procession  as  I  was  coming  in 
to  lunch.  It  was  first-rate,  and  the  people 
turned  out  delighted,  hoping  that  this  was 
the  beginning  of  better  things.  First  came 
about  twenty  horses,  then  about  the  same 
number  of  cattle,  and  then  a  big  waggon 
with  a  water  tank  on  it,  and  drawn  by  six- 
teen lovely  bullocks,  so  fat  that  our  mouths 
watered  just  from  looking  at  them.  On  the 
front  of  the  waggon  stood  a  man  I  know  in 
a  statuesque  attitude,  with  his  rifle  grounded, 
and    an     "  I-did-it-though-you-wouldn't-think- 


H  1Fle\v  Use  for  S)iamonD*/IDines    195 

it-of-me "  expression  on  his  face.  Oh,  it  was 
great ! — but  the  effect  was  rather  spoiled  by 
an  excited  Kaffir  who  was  standing  up  on 
the  waggon  tilt  just  behind  him,  waving  a 
riding-boot  in  each  hand  and  shouting  "  Look, 
at  Cronje's  boots "  in  Dutch. 

Our   people    sent   out  strong  reinforcements 
to     Alexandersfontein,     for     they    knew     that 
the   Dutch   would  return  presently  and   would 
hanker  after  those  provisions,  and   as  the  place 
was  on  the  flat,  within  easy  artillery  range  of 
kopjes   on  three   sides,   they  expected   a  pretty 
warm    time — and    they   got    it.     Along  in  the 
afternoon  the  Boers  returned,  and  did  not  take 
to  the  new  order  of  things  at  all  kindly,   but 
commenced   to    make    things    hum,    both    with 
rifles     and     artillery.       Fortunately    there    was 
fairly    good    cover    against  rifle  fire,   and,  as    I 
have  said    before,  the   Dutch    never    could    hit 
anything  at    which   they  aimed    their   artillery. 
A   lot  of  lead  was  wasted  and    no    harm    was 
done,    but   we   arc   very   much    afraid    our   men 
will    not    be    able    to    hold    out     to-morrow   if 
the    Boers  get    reinforcements    and    try   to  cut 
them  off.      We    cannot    spare  any    men.      We 
have    too   few    already,    so    they    may   have    to 


196  3Besieoe^  bp  tbe  ifiSoers 

retire,    and    that    is    always    a  dangerous    busi- 
ness. 

It  is  rumoured  to-day  that  General  French 
is  coming  on  through  Jacobsdal  to  our  relief, 
and  is  burning  every  Dutch  laager  and  home- 
stead that  he  comes  across  on  the  way.  Cer- 
tainly I  saw  three  or  four  columns  of  smoke 
over  in  the  Jacobsdal  direction  this  afternoon, 
but  I  guess  the  rumour  was  made  to  fit  them, 
for,  as  far  as  we  know,  French  is  over  Colesberg 
way  still.  A  rumour  that  Cronje  has  been 
captured  is  probably  equally  false.  It  is  too 
good  to  be  true. 

Early  this  morning  Major  Rodger,  the 
second  in  command  of  our  mounted  men,  got 
shot  by  the  Boers  when  out  with  a  scouting 
party  in  the  Alexandersfontein  direction.  He 
is  a  very  good  man,  a  keen  sportsman,  a 
first-rate  shot,  and  full  of  the  quiet,  determined 
pluck  that  the  men  appreciate  far  better -than 
hot-headed  recklessness.  They  would  follow 
him  anywhere.  He  had  sent  some  men  to  spy 
out  the  land  behind  some  kopjes,  and  after  a 
time  saw  two  men  coming  out  on  the  far  side. 
Thinking  they  were  his  own  men,  he  rode  off 
towards    them,   well    in    advance    of   the    main 


H  IRew  XPlse  for  S)iamon^'-/II^ine5    197 

body.  When  he  got  within  about  seventy 
yards,  he  saw  that  they  were  Boers.  If  he 
returned  to  his  own  men,  he  knew  the  Boers 
would  shoot,  ditto  if  he  galloped  up  to  them, 
and  if  he  tried  to  get  his  revolver  out  of  the 
holster,  they  would  certainly  pot  him  before 
he  could  fire  ;  so  he  pulled  his  horse  into  a 
walk  and  went  right  up  to  them.  When 
quite  close,  one  of  them  spoke  to  him  in 
Dutch  : 

"  Who  are  you  ?  " 

"  Oh,  I  am  one  of  the  fighting  men  from 
Kimberley,"   he  answered. 

The  words  were  hardly  out  of  his  mouth 
before  the  gallant  pair  of  Boers  turned  round 
and  fled  over  the  veldt  for  all  they  were  worth. 
When  they  got  about  half  a  mile  away,  they 
came  up  to  some  of  their  own  men  hidden 
in  a  sluit,  and  then  they  all  fired  at  Rodger 
together,  but  in  the  meantime  his  men  had 
come  up,  and  after  a  volley  or  two  the  Boers 
suddenly  remembered  that  it  was  breakfast-time 
and  went  off.  Rodger  was  hit  in  the  left  fore- 
arm and  one  of  the  bones  broken,  but  he 
went  on  and  finished  his  day's  work,  and  only 
came   to   look    for   mc   at  half-past   five  in    the 


1 98  IBcsiCQC'^  b^  tbe  Boers 

afternoon.  I  was  out,  so  Mackenzie  saw 
him  and  wanted  to  order  him  ofF  duty,  but 
Rodger  flatly  declined,  and  I  don't  expect 
he  will  appear  on  the  sick  list  at  all.  The 
Regulars  call  our  Kimberley  forces  "  tin 
soldiers,"  and  are  a  little  inclined  to  be 
superior  with  them,  but  if  this  is  a  sample, 
the  tin  breed   is  the  one  for  us. 

I  was  down  the  Kimberley  Mine  when 
Rodger  was  looking  for  me.  I  had  an  hour 
or  so  to  spare,  and  thought  I  would  see  if 
I  could  be  of  any  help  down  there,  though 
Mackenzie  had  been  down  in  the  morning. 
Still,  I  knew  that  there  were  a  lot  of  small 
ailments  amongst  the  people  there,  and,  as 
they  had  been  down  for  three  days,  a  second 
visit  would  not  hurt  them. 

I  got  to  the  mine  just  as  they  were  sending 
the  tea  down.  There  were  a  thousand  people 
to  be  fed,  but  the  Company  was  quite  equal 
to  it.  A  staff  of  their  ambulance  men  had 
been  put  on  duty,  and  they  were  sending 
down  huge  quantities  of  corned-beef  sand- 
wiches (in  condensed  milk  boxes  for  con- 
venience in  handling),  and  buckets  of  tea  and 
coffee,  with   condensed   milk   in   it.     This   was 


a  IRew  Tllse  for  S)tamon&*/llMne5    199 

at  a  time  when  nobody  above  ground  could 
get  either  corned  (tinned)  beef  or  condensed 
milk  without  a  doctor's  order,  and  as  there 
was  a  fair  supply  of  fresh  milk  for  the 
children,  those  down  below  fared  better  than 
those  above.  I  went  first  down  to  the 
lowest  level,  fifteen  hundred  feet  below  the 
surface.  As  well  as  I  know  the  mine,  I 
was  astonished  to  see  how  different  it  looked 
full  of  people.  They  were  in  the  large 
chamber  cut  in  the  rock,  past  one  end  of 
which  the  shaft  runs.  It  is  about  twenty 
feet  high  and  thirty  or  forty  wide,  and  leads 
away  into   the   mine   at   the   far  end. 

It  was  lighted  up  as  usual  with  electric 
light,  and  was  fairly  cool,  but  it  was  just 
packed  with  people.  Most  of  the  children 
had  been  laid  down  to  sleep  on  the  rugs  and 
blankets  or  mattresses  they  had  brought  with 
them,  and  these  things  just  covered  the  floor. 
Except  for  a  passage  down  the  whole  length 
of  the  chamber,  there  did  not  seem  to  be  an 
inch  of  space.  I  moved  about  gingerly  for 
fear  of  treading  on  somebody,  and  saw  a  few 
people  who  had  little  troubles  or  wanted  to 
know     how     things    were     up    above,    but    the 


200  BeseiQe^  b^  tbe  Boers 

people  were  as  good  as  gold  and  did  not 
make  a  single  complaint.  Many  of  the  babies 
were  a  little  feverish  from  the  draughts,  which 
were  unavoidable,  and  from  the  rather  close 
atmosphere,  but  this  was  far  better  than 
I  had  expected,  considering  the  number  of 
people. 

Except  those  who  were  looking  after  things, 
I  hardly  saw  a  man  there.  A  few  had  come 
down  at  first,  but  public  opinion  had  got  rid 
of  them  by  this  time.  I  spent  some  time 
here  talking  to  the  people  I  knew.  Many 
of  them  asked  whether  I  advised  them  to 
stay  down  or  not.  I  said  that  if  they  were 
well,  I  thought  they  should  stay,  but  if  they 
were  feeling  seedy  and  had  a  decently  strong 
shelter  up  above,  I  advised  them  to  go  up, 
as  there  were  often  long  intervals  between 
the  shells,  during  which  they  could  get  food, 
fresh  air,  a  bath,  and  so  on. 

Then  I  went  up  to  the  next  level,  twelve 
hundred  feet  down,  and  found  things  just 
about  the  same,  only  it  was  cooler  and  the 
people  were,  if  anything,  packed  closer.  Walk- 
ing round  and  dodging  the  sleeping  babies 
reminded  me  of   a  visit  I  made  to  that   place 


H  IRew  "Clse  for  Dtamonb^/IlMnes    201 

near  Brigg  where  the  seagulls  nest.  There 
you  could  hardly  put  a  foot  down  without 
damaging  eggs  or  young  birds,  and  it  was 
just  the  same  here. 

After  looking  round,  I  went  up  top-side 
again,  and  found  more  people  there  in  the 
tunnel,  which  slopes  down  from  the  compound 
to  the  cage  in  which  the  boys  go  down  the 
mine.  The  bottom  end  of  this  is  about  thirty 
feet  below  the  ground,  but  opens  into  a  large 
space  round  the  engine-house,  so  that  many 
people  who  did  not  care  to  go  down  below 
took  shelter  here,  as  they  could  get  out  into 
the  air  between  the  spells  of  shelling.  But 
this  place  had  many  drawbacks.  It  was  only 
about  three  feet  wide,  and  when  you  lay 
down,  people  kept  walking  over  you  all  the 
time,  so  it  was  not  really  so  good  as  the 
mine. 

I  forgot  to  tell  you,  when  speaking  of  the 
provisions  captured  at  Alexandersfontein,  that 
many  of  our  men  carried  off  anything  that 
came  handy  in  the  eatable  line.  Some  of  them 
were  busy  chivying  fowls  and  turkeys  even 
when  the  Boer  fire  was  hottest.  But  the  butter 
was    the    greatest  attraction.      Most    of  it   was 


202  JBcsiCQC^  bp  tbe  Boers 

commandeered  by  the  military  for  the  hospital, 
but  I  know  of  one  man  getting  away  with 
two  pounds  by  sticking  it  on  his  arm  and 
wrapping  a  handkerchief  round  it,  and  putting 
the  whole  thing  into  a  sling  as  if  he  were 
wounded.  Others  came  in  with  fowls  and 
ducks  slung  across  their  saddles  in  regular 
campaigning  style. 


CHAPTER  XI 

RELIEF  AT  LAST 

TO-DAY  (February  15th)  is  almost  too 
good  to  write  about.  Yesterday  we 
were  very  sceptical  about  French's  advance, 
and  to-night  he  is  here,  having  brought  his 
men  along  one  hundred  and  twenty  miles  in 
four  days.  It  is  almost  too  good  to  believe, 
and  no  one  can  realise  what  it  means  yet,  it 
has  been  so  unexpected.  But  I  had  better 
finish  the  story  of  the  siege  properly,  having 
got  so  far.  Last  night  at  about  ten  o'clock 
we  heard  heavy  rifle  firing  out  at  Carter's 
Farm  and  Otto's  Kopje,  and  a  Maxim  got 
to  work  too.  The  Maxim  is  easy  to  identify 
at  a  distance.  It  sounds  like  a  street  boy 
running  along  your  freshly  painted  garden 
railings  with  a  stick.  We  wondered  what 
on  earth  was  happening.  Had  the  Boers  at 
last     plucked     up    courage     to     attack  ?       The 

203 


204  Bestcae^  b^  tbe  Boers 

rattle  only  lasted  about  half  an  hour,  so 
evidently  there  was  nothing  very  serious. 
In  the  morning  we  found  that  it  had  just 
been  a  little  ruse  to  divert  the  Boers'  minds, 
and  keep  their  attention  fixed  whilst  our 
men  brought  in  the  captured  provisions  from 
Alexandersfontein.  We  wanted  them  too 
badly  to  risk  losing  them  for  want  of  a  little 
strategy,  and  that  which  we  practised  was 
quite  successful.  I  got  my  share  of  yester- 
day's loot  in  the  shape  of  three  very  large 
onions  and  a  couple  of  vegetable  marrows, 
and  they  were  just  lovely. 

The  big  gun  started  at  about  ten  o'clock, 
and  the  cordite  gun  at  Carter's  put  in  a  good 
deal  of  work  too.  This  latter  scared  mc 
badly  during  the  morning,  as  I  had  to  see 
a  lot  of  patients  in  the  district  to  which  it 
was  paying  particular  attention.  I  somehow 
felt  that  relief  was  close  at  hand,  as  the 
rumours  of  French's  advance  were  very 
persistent  this  morning,  and  yet,  though  no 
shell  came  near  me,  I  could  not  get  over 
a  horrid  feehng  that  it  would  be  just  my 
luck  to  get  bowled  over  at  the  last  moment, 
after  going  scot-free  for  so  long. 


IReltef  at  Xast  205 

At  one  house  where  I  called  I  could  not 
make  any  one  hear  at  the  front  door,  so  I 
went  round  to  the  back-yard  gate,  where  I 
found  all  the  children  busy  digging  out  a  shell 
which  had  dropped  there  a  few  minutes  before, 
but  the  patient  was  safe  in  the  house  fort. 
This  was  the  last  shell  that  small  gun  fired, 
and  I  think  the  big  gun  only  put  one  more 
in  before  it  retired  from  business  altogether. 
All  the  morning  we  kept  hearing  that  the 
Boers  were  trying  all  they  knew  to  rout  our 
men  out  of  Alexandersfontein,  but  they  did 
not  seem  altogether  big  enough  for  the  job, 
and  we  hoped  to  let  it  stay  at  that,  but 
were  anxious   all  the  same. 

At  about  half-past  three  o'clock  in  the  after- 
noon a  man  told  me  that  French's  column 
could  be  seen  from  the  Beaconsfield  debris 
heaps,  but  I  did  not  believe  it  until  I  went 
over  to  the  club  and  found  that  it  was 
quite  true.  Then  I  went  straight  away  and 
bought  the  largest  Union  Jack  I  could  get 
hold  of,  and  Agnes  tied  it  on  a  long  stick 
and  stuck  it  out  from  the  end  of  our 
second-story  verandah  for  all  the  world  to 
admire.      Wc  ourselves    admired   it    more   than 


2o6  Besieged  bp  tbe  iBoers 

anything  else  on    the    face    of   the    earth    just 
then. 

After  that  I  drove  up  on  to  the  veldt  about 
a  mile,  out  to  a  place  where  one  could  get 
a  view  of  the  surrounding  country,  and  had  a 
good  look  round.  In  several  directions  there 
were  clouds  of  dust,  showing  that  big  bodies 
of  men  were  on  the  move,  but  though  the 
relief-work  natives  there  declared  they  were 
English,  it  was  impossible  to  be  sure. 

(Somehow  I  have  forgotten  to  mention  those 
relief  works.  They  were  started  by  Mr. 
Rhodes  quite  early  in  the  siege.  The  roads 
of  one  part  of  the  town,  which  had  only  been 
acquired  by  the  De  Beers  Company  a  few 
months  ago,  were  shockingly  bad,  so  when  it 
became  necessary  to  find  something  for  natives, 
and  others  who  had  "  got  no  work  to  do,"  to 
make  a  living  wage  at,  they  were  turned  on 
to  these  roads,  and  several  thousands  of  them 
have  been  working  ever  since,  and  besides 
making  a  living  for  themselves,  have  wonder- 
fully improved  that  part  of  the  town.) 

Finding  that  nothing  could  be  seen  from 
where  I  was,  I  came  home  to  fetch  Agnes, 
and  started  for  Beaconsfield,  in  which  direction 


IReliet  at  Xast  207 

it  seemed  most  probable  that  our  troops  would 
arrive,  but  when  I  was  passing  the  hospital 
gate  I  saw  the  ambulance  go  in.  As  my 
post  was  there  when  there  were  any  wounded 
around,  I  went  to  see  what  was  happening, 
and  found  two  fresh  wounded  cases.  I  told 
Agnes  where  to  get  the  best  view  in  Beaconsfield, 
and  sent  her  off  alone.  Both  the  wounded 
were  shot  in  the  head.  One  had  a  depressed 
fracture  of  the  skull,  and  I  had  to  trephine 
and  remove  some  splinters  of  bone  that  were 
driven  in,  but  it  was  quite  a  simple,  straight- 
forward case,  and  the  man  will  probably  recover 
without  a  hitch  of  any  sort. 

The  other  was  a  most  interesting  case. 
The  patient,  a  boy  of  twelve,  had  been  playing 
about  on  the  outskirts  of  the  Alexandersfontein 
fighting,  picking  up  bits  of  shell  and  other 
unconsidered  trifles,  and  generally  having  a 
good  time.  But  at  last  I  suppose  he  got  too 
venturesome  and  went  to  pick  up  some  shell 
within  range  of  the  Boer  rifles,  and  they 
potted  him  right  through  the  head,  from  above 
the  right  eye  to  above  and  behind  the  left 
ear.  He  was  very  collapsed,  and  brain  was 
oozing    out  of  both   wounds.       If  it   had   been 


2o8  3Besicge&  bv?  tbe  Boers 

six  months  ago,  I  should  have  said  he  would 
certainly  die,  but  I  know  Mauser  bullets 
better  now,  and  should  not  be  surprised  if 
he  pulled  through  all  right. 

By  the  time  I  had  fixed  him  up,  it  was 
nearly  dark,  and  I  had  missed  the  actual  entry 
of  the  relief  column,  but  I  was  in  time  to 
see  the  arrival  of  General  French  and  his  staff 
in  the  town.  Agnes  had  seen  the  whole 
thing  down  in  Beaconsfield,  and  had  been  one 
of  the  group  of  ladies  who  nearly  pulled  the 
first  man  in  off  his  horse,  they  were  so  delighted 
to  see  him.  The  scene  in  the  town  and  at 
the  club  can't  be  described.  I  am  not  going 
to  try  to  do  it,  but  it  was  quieter  than  you 
would  have  expected  ;  everybody  was  far  too 
deeply  moved  to  be  noisy. 

Directly  the  relief  was  an  established  fact, 
they  began  to  haul  up  the  people  from  the 
mines,  and  they  were  all  up  by  about  mid- 
night, none  the  worse  for  their  four  days' 
stay  down  below. 

And  so  our  siege  is  over,  and  though 
we  have  had  nothing  like  so  bad  a  time 
as  Mafeking  and  Ladysmith,  if  all  we  hear 
about    them    is    true,     still    it    was    quite    bad 


•nteliet  at  Xast  2*09 

enough.  We  all  feel  just  what  ;i  friend  said 
to  me  to-night  :  "  If  ever  I  am  in  a  country 
where  they  begin  to  talk  about  war  again, 
I  shall  take  the  first  boat  to  the  far  side  of 
the  world,  and  stop  when  I  get  there." 

We  have  been  shut  up  for  one  hundred 
and  twenty-four  days  (from  October  14th  to 
February  15th),  and  during  the  whole  of 
this  time  the  Boers  have  never  once  attacked 
the  town,  or  even  been  within  rifle  shot  of 
it.  Through  their  friends  in  town,  they  must 
have  known  almost  to  a  man  the  strength 
of  our  defence  forces,  and  yet  they  have 
contented  themselves  with  shelling  us  from 
a  distance. 

It  is  funny  to  see  in  the  Dutch  papers  how 
every  general  is  alluded  to  as  "  Fighting " 
General  Snyman  or  De  la  Rcy,  or  whatever 
his  name  may  be.  We  wonder  whether  there 
are  other  classes  of  generals  — "  praying  " 
generals,  or  perhaps  even  "funking"  generals. 

I  spoke  of  our  defence  forces  just  now  ;  it 
will  interest  you  to  know  who  and  what  they 
were  :  —  Mounted  men  :  Kimberley  Light 
Horse,  335;  Cape  Police,  about  300; 
Diamond     Fields     Horse,    about      150.        I'his 

t4 


2IO  BesieoeD  by  tbe  Boers 

makes  a  total  of  785,  but  what  with  sick- 
ness, guards  on  barriers,  cattle  guards,  etc., 
we  could  never  turn  out  more  than  550 
for  any  offensive  measures  against  the  Boers, 
and  as  they  were  all  mounted,  infantry  was 
not  of  much  use  against  them.  Next  came 
the  artillery  :  —  Diamond  Fields  Artillery, 
118  ;  Royal  Artillery,  95 — 213  in  all;  then 
the  infantry: — Town  Guard,  2794;  Lanca- 
shires,  roughly,  500  ;  Kimberley  Rifles,  380 — 
a  total  of  3674. 

Out  of  the  total  number  of  available 
defenders  (4,672),  only  about  600  were 
Regulars,  or  900  including  the  police,  and 
therefore  we  feel  proud  of  ourselves,  as  our 
own  men  have  done  so  much  towards  the 
defence  of  our  own  town.  But  the  two  men 
of  whom  we  are  most  proud  are  Colonel 
Kekewich  and  Mr,  Rhodes — of  the  colonel 
for  the  even-handed  justice  with  which  he 
has  administered  everything  for  the  benefit  of 
rich  and  poor  alike,  and  of  Mr.  Rhodes  for 
the  magnificent  way  in  which  he  has  acted 
as  a  guardian  angel  to  us  all. 


Printed  by  Hazell,  Watsoti,  and  Viney,  Ld.,  London  and  Aylesbury. 


Messrs.  HUTCHINSON  &  CO.'S 

NEW    6s.     NOVELS. 


SHE    STANDS    ALONE. 

By    mark    ASHTON. 

Second  Edition  Exhausted. 

"  The  story  which  Mr.  Ashton  has  woven  is  engrossing." — Daily 
Telegraph. 

"  A  sympathetic  chord  has  been  struck  by  the  author  of  this  singular 
romance.  Her  work  proves  her  ability,  her  gift  of  imagination,  and  her 
enthusiasm,  which  lend  life  to  ancient  figures  and  actuality  to  the  dim 
past.  Treated  with  force  and  good  taste,  and  in  fine,  this  story  of  Pilate's 
wife  gives  us  assurance  of  a  new  writer  singularly  able  and  original." — 
World. 


A    NEW    NOVEL. 

THE    LOST    CONTINENT. 

By    CUTCLIFFE    HYNE. 
Author  of  "  The  Adventures  of  Captain  Kettle,"  etc.,  etc. 

Mr.  Cutcliffe  Hyne's  career  is  being  closely  watched  by  many  literary 
men  and  women.  There  is  not  perhaps  any  new  writer  of  whom  greater 
things  are  to  be  expected.  He  has  uncommon  power,  a  way  of  telling 
things  that  makes  a  clear  impression,  and  his  matter  is  always  fresh  ;  his 
readers  can  now  be  counted  in  their  thousands.  He  has  won  his  way  to 
the  front  rank  by  his  spirited  tales,  and  his  new  story  can  only  enhance 
an  already  high  reputation.  It  is  on  distinctly  original  lines,  written  in 
a  singularly  forcible  style,  and  full  of  exciting  scenes  which  rivet  the 
attention  and  keep  the  reader  enchained,  A  bare  outline  of  the  story 
could  not  convey  what  will  be  found  in  the  book.    It  must  be  read. 


A    NEW    NOVEL. 

THE    HEART    OF    THE    DANCER. 

By    PERCY    WHITE. 
Author  of  "Mr.   Bailey  Martin,"   "  Curruplion,"   "  Andria,"  etc. 


Lo.ndo.n:    HUlCHINSON    &    CO.,     IVitK-NosTtR    Row. 


Messrs.  HUTCHINSON  ^  CO.'S  NEW  6s.  NOVELS  (-«'/«-^.) 


A    NEW    NOVEL. 

GARTHOWEN. 

Bv    ALLEN    RAINE. 
Author  of  "A  Welsh  Singer." 

As  indicated  by  its  title,  Allen  Raine's  new  story  is  again  a  Welsh 
one.  Wales  is  a  field  which  she  is  making  almost  entirely  her  own,  and 
she  is  working  it  so  well  that  the  Principality  could  not  wish  a  better 
representative.  This  new  story  will  be  found  to  possess  all  the  charm 
that  has  made  her  earlier  pictures  of  Welsh  life  so  attractive,  but  it  is 
quite  fresh  and  original. 


A    NEW    NOVEL    BY    A    NEW    WRITER. 

THE    DEAN    OF    DARRENDALE. 

By    WYNTON    EVERSLEY. 

"  It  shows  strength  and  insight,  descriptive  powers  of  no  mean  order, 
a  fine  faculty  for  expression,  and  considerable  skill  in  characterisation." — 
Glasgow  Herald. 

"There  can  be  no  getting  away  from  the  excellence.  Mr.  Eversley  has 
large  views,  humour,  sincerity,  and  art." — Outlook. 


PUBLISHED  SIMULTANEOUSLY  IN 
LONDON,     NEW    YORK,     and    TORONTO. 

THE    NEW    ROMANCE, 

A    KENT    SQUIRE, 

Being  a  Record  of  Certain  Adventures  of  AMBROSE 
GWYNETT,  Esquire,  of  Thornhaugh. 

By    F.    W.    HAYES. 
With  Sixteen  Illustrations  by  the  Author. 


London:    HUTCHINSON    &    CO.,    Paternoster   Row. 


^^' 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

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